A Very Offensive Rom-Com

April 10, 2019 7:52 AM

A young woman discovers a pattern in her dating habits that disturbs her - a pattern that challenges her very conception of who she is and what she believes in. The realization sets her off on a quest to change her attractions. But is this even possible? And should we be hacking our desire to match our values?

Invisibilia tells the story of several Asian women and men who don't find Asian men attractive... and what they try to do about that. (transcript)

Invisibilia does their research. In the top link, you can also find links to and descriptions of the best research in this area. Click in for more links to the research

ASIAN AMERICAN SEXUALITY

Sexual Naturalization: Asian Americans and Miscegenation
From the Stanford University Press description of the book: "In the first major interdisciplinary study of Asian-white miscegenation from the late nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century, Koshy traces the shifting gender and racial hierarchies produced by anti-miscegenation laws, and their role in shaping cultural norms. Not only did these laws foster the reproduction of the United States as a white nation, they were paralleled by extraterritorial privileges that facilitated the sexual access of white American men to Asian women overseas. Miscegenation laws thus turned sex acts into race acts and engendered new meanings for both."

Asian American Sexual Politics: The Construction of Race, Gender, and Sexuality
From the Rowman & Littlefield book description: "Drawing on established scholarship on the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality, Asian American Sexual Politics shows how power dynamics shape the lives of young Asian Americans today. Asian-American women are often constructed as hyper-sexual docile bodies, while Asian-American men are often racially 'castrated.' The book's interview excerpts show the range of frames through which Asian Americans approach the world, as well as the counter-frames they construct. In the final chapter, author Rosalind S. Chou offers strategies for countering racialized and sexualized oppression."

Asian American Women and Men: Labor, Laws, and Love
From the Rowan and Littlefield book description: "Asian American Men and Women documents how the historical and contemporary oppression of Asians in the United States has (re)structured the balance of power between Asian American women and men and shaped their struggles to create and maintain social institutions and systems of meaning. Espiritu emphasizes how race, gender, and class, as categories of difference, do not parallel but instead intersect and confirm one other."

Racing Romance: Love, Power, and and Desire among Asian American/White Couples
From the Rutgers University Press book details page: "Racing Romance reveals how allegedly progressive interracial relationships remain firmly shaped by the logic of patriarchy and gender inherent to the ideal of marriage, family, and nation in America, even as this ideal is juxtaposed with discourses of multiculturalism and color blindness."

posted by rebent (27 comments total)

Note: this podcast tells a very human story on a complex, controversial topic. It takes into account both the possible flexibility and inflexibility of attraction. It does not cast blame at individuals, and looks instead at how systems drive individual behavior, and what individuals can do to aspire to overcome the systemic "programming" or influence.

Personally, I am quite interested in overcoming my systemic programming, and I am very interested in hearing stories of others who have tried to do the same.
posted by rebent at 7:56 AM on April 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

I liked the detour into rats who won't have sex without being properly dressed up for it.
posted by LizardBreath at 8:46 AM on April 10, 2019 [12 favorites]

I have an odd twist on this problem in that I, a gay white man, really struggle to see white men (including myself) as objects of sexual and romantic interest. The prospect of me dating one especially seems kind of incestuous, narcissistic, and even provincial to me—which I know is fundamentally ridiculous and not at all grounded in fact. I also worry a lot more about white men potentially doing me harm, possibly a result of the many widely publicised horrible crimes involving gay white men killing or infecting sexual partners. My therapist told me I could try to correct it by going on dates with and masturbating to white men, only the latter of which I can actually bring myself to do on occasion. The flipside of all this is that I worry a lot about whether I am fetishising and exotifying men of colour. What I try to do is pay a lot of attention to contemporary sexual politics, and especially the perspectives of people of colour who have found themselves on the receiving end of dehumanising sexual attention. I don't think I have ever consciously treated a sexual or romantic partner as any less whole and complete a person as I consider myself, but I keep close tabs on my feelings and attitudes nonetheless. My problems with white men, however, remain unresolved.

The podcast is good and it made me feel a lot better that there are (many?) other people out there struggling with these issues.
posted by David Tennant's tenant, David at 9:09 AM on April 10, 2019 [19 favorites]

I recently listened to Episode 1 of this season, an incredibly controversial podcast about girls with a chronic pain syndrome but otherwise "nothing wrong with them" who undergo a treatment that teaches them to ignore their pain. With a framing of "But what about the 1950s, when we all ignored pain and were better"? and not much "Women's pain is often discounted in our society." I'm not saying that episode was scientifically invalid, but I was really interested in the way they framed the story.

That episode opened with the narrator talking about her own experience of having a hangnail, the pain of which caused her to not empathize enough with a (male) terminal cancer patient. I had just finished Kate Manne's Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, which posits that women are constantly considered to owe men their attention, affection, empathy and sex, but not expect it from men or others. So this narrator is failing at being moral because of her hangnail. If she could have properly ignored her own pain, she could have given the cancer patient the empathy she was supposed to. The podcast goes on to explore a girl injured in dance (super feminine, super common) but (according to doctors) over-cared for by her mother, who must learn to ignore pain ("rewire her body's systems") so that she can dance again.

I don't disagree with Episode 5's discussion of racial issues. I don't think this podcast is about blame. I think that L should go out and get a rainbow of dick if that's what she really wants. But I find it amazing that this is the second episode this season that is literally about women trying to "re-wire" their physical responses so that they can perform "good feminine behavior" -- in this case, loving men of their own race. And I'm not saying they shouldn't, I just find it strange.

Like there are detours into social science, the history of anti-Asian racism and sexism, and all sorts of objective stuff. We're introduced to horrible trolls on the internet who mock Asian women. We're not expected to empathize with them--but then we are expected to empathize with C, and with hottie Harry Shum Jr. Yet it's framed around one woman's physical sexual response (and by extension, Asian-American women's responses) being the problem that must be solved in order to get to a better world.
posted by Hypatia at 9:09 AM on April 10, 2019 [37 favorites]

The first link includes 11 comments by Jim Pfaus, a psychologist at Concordia (his profile has been scrubbed). Pfaus's comments about how humans develop sexual preference are an important part of the NPR piece, and help frame the rest of the discussion on sexuality.

Given his alleged abusive behaviour, I wonder exactly how accurate and valuable Pfaus's research could be:

Hours after dropping this episode, we learned of allegations of misconduct against Professor Jim Pfaus that were published by the CBC just before our story aired. We have since done additional reporting on his work and have not encountered objections to the quality of his research.

FWIW, my wife is from Japan, and my children are Japanese citizens. I am a white cis man who grew up in Canada in the 70s and 80s.
posted by JamesBay at 9:10 AM on April 10, 2019 [5 favorites]

It’s a category mistake to try to reconfigure a structural problem at the level of the individual. Putting the onus of change on individual members of a class at an intersection of oppressions and putative privileges (but I mean, are they really) isn’t a neutral expectation.

I think representation is the appropriate field of change.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:38 AM on April 10, 2019 [20 favorites]

Cotton dress sock, do you think that part of this is the stereotypical narrative structure of NPR sciency podcasts? Like, 1. Here is a person with a problem (so you can relate to them). 2. Here are some possible reasons for their problem (myths, social sciences, jokes). 3. Here is an Expert Scientist telling you the Science Reason for the problem. 4. Let's check back in on our person. How is their problem going? Are they fixing it with Science?

I would have been very interested to hear, for example, a podcast dealing with the dating issues faced by Asian American men. But that seems like it would be a culture podcast, exploring the social history this episode touched on, and the emotional states of C. and Harry Shum Jr., and the intersection of people and structures. There's also not a "solvable problem" where women will start to find them as attractive as white men without... you know... major societal change. Similarly, people being told to "make themselves more attractive" is 1. offensive 2. impractical and 3. feminizing (since that's what women do, and Asian American men are already too feminized by society). Nor could you get a "science angle" that doesn't sound kind of racist ("Sorry! They're just not attracted to you!") without a woman willing to undertake this sort of retraining and provide Hope Through Science.
posted by Hypatia at 9:54 AM on April 10, 2019 [11 favorites]

Listening to this while walking the dog last night. Aside from the whole yellow fever thing with white men, this statistic jumped out at me: Asian Americans are only 6% of the American population, so aside from the inherent problems of this narrative (especially solving what may or may not be a problem by self-rewiring), the fact is that there are a lot more potential non-Asian mates out there, which is significant if your mate choice is driven by factors other than race.
posted by kozad at 10:05 AM on April 10, 2019 [10 favorites]

That Reddit guy that was harassing her could have taken an individual action by stopping and going away. I mean, yeah that's not going to completely end harassment, but it does make things a little less worse for people involved.
posted by FJT at 10:07 AM on April 10, 2019 [3 favorites]

This is an excellent example of how to try and separate individual taste from larger social conditioning. If one Asian woman has a preference for dating non-Asian men, you can't tell if that's social conditioning or if it's just her taste. But if a significant number of Asian women choose not to date Asian men then it becomes clear that social conditioning is at play.

And yes, trying to frame this as "here is something Asian women can fix about themselves" is a bad way of approaching the problem.

The core issue is why white culture has fetishized Asian women, while basically making Asian men into a sort of sexual laughing stock. The number of "jokes" involving Asian men being unappealing or having a small penis tells us that white culture has a deep problem with Asian male sexuality just as the frequent fetishization of Asian women by white men tells us that white culture has a deep problem with Asian female sexuality.

Which isn't surprising, white culture has a deep problem with just about any non-white sexuality.

I can see how some individual Asian women might want to try and change their attitude, but ultimately the fix has to come from white culture not being so awful.

I was also rather disturbed at how casually they sort of glided over the threatening harassment L got on reddit. Seems to me that's deserving of an entire podcast of its own.
posted by sotonohito at 10:16 AM on April 10, 2019 [15 favorites]

@Hypatia - yes, completely! I think NPR and comparable outlets are probably always going to want to use an individual’s story as a narrative hook. I agree, it’s probably not the best lens for broad and layered subjects like this!
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:28 AM on April 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

oh wait folks I also noticed that episode 3 is literally a woman who has an electric device implanted in her brain to deal with her OCD and (of course) help her stay in a loving relationship.
posted by Hypatia at 12:08 PM on April 10, 2019 [10 favorites]

On the topic of NPR telling women how to behave...

I wonder if that might be a conscious decision by the hosts, who are all (last I checked) women of cover. While I often take issue with their reporting (not surprising, since they cover controversial topics) I've always felt they chose to cover topics that were personal to them, from their own point of view.
posted by rebent at 12:32 PM on April 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

I've put off listening to this podcast for too long. I'm hitting subscribe today. As an Asian-Indian man who just recently married a white woman, I'm intrigued to listen/learn/reflect on how all of these subjects coincide together. Thanks for making this post.
posted by Fizz at 1:19 PM on April 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure I can provide a unbiased commentary on this issue (am a cis het Asian man) without basically ranting, but I do find it uncomfortable that, like cotton dress sock and Hypatia pointed out, the podcasts are focusing on how to "help/fix" these women, rather than figuring out a broader issue with representation, especially in media. The hosts being POC is perhaps both a positive and a negative. While it's good that they can help listeners see a different point of view, layered issues like racial bias such as this episode can lose wider focus and become too specific to their points of view, in that it becomes like a Queer Eye episode about how can we improve this one person's life.
posted by numaner at 1:20 PM on April 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

I didn't know about the details of racist sexual segregation history, nor the starkness of internalized oppression given by C's as well as Prof. Russel's examples. These details help make sense of my own experiences encountering other gay Asian men.

I think L and Shaw are well aware that a structural approach is needed; they don't need to be reminded of that. I think the insight lies in understanding that it isn't an either-or dichotomy. The idea of making daily-life changes and confronting one's internalized oppression, by including L's example as intentionally portrayed by the NPR interview as a more extreme set of choices, duals and intersects with structurality; it doesn't necessarily oppose it. Sometimes, people cannot wait for structure. Sometimes, people aren't in a position to devote to sophisticated causes like media representation which require social capital.

There's a neat irony in that being on NPR precisely gives them representation. So that's appreciable.
posted by polymodus at 2:21 PM on April 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

I found this episode fascinating though I only read the transcript. Thank you for the post.

(A derail, but I wanted to say to David Tennant's tenant, David that you are not alone, I am a queer cis white American man and I have found, after dating people of various colors, that white men are just way more likely to say ignorant, privileged, and unkind things. And it took me way too long to realize that when an old institution, scene, or circle of friends is totally white, that there are reasons for that, and it's not okay. I'm from Seattle and still live here and it's full of white gay guys who only seem to have white friends and lovers, and it's very tiring. I find myself leaning towards non white guys simply because I'm hoping they'll be less ignorant.)
posted by panhopticon at 2:41 PM on April 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Like... there are now two comments here by white cisgay men talking about how they don't date white men. Congratulations, I guess?

I mean, no, not really? Like, I definitely think it's problematic.

But I'm not sure that's the discussion we should be having in this thread

Fair enough. I listened to this podcast episode before it was posted to the blue, and I came to it through a framing where the fact that it was about unwanted sexual preferences was made more salient than the fact that it was about Asian-American women, which is not really the case in this post.

For an (iirc) more humorous and conversational approach to this issue that avoids the kind of pathologising tendencies that are being critiqued above, there's a entertaining discussion by journalist Monica Tan of her self-described "unfortunate fetish for the most privileged group on the planet" in this episode of the Guardian podcast Token.
posted by David Tennant's tenant, David at 4:24 PM on April 10, 2019

I mean, my whole thing about dating as a gay Asian man is that I worry that my dates won't see me as a person as much as a bag of stereotypes. Hearing about how white men flick the meter into "oh, PoC all share my politics and are so kind and aware" is not something that comforts me, at all. Like, I'm sitting here and reading that and going "sure, you might believe that, but is that really something you feel like you should be vocalizing in mixed company?" Because come on, the number of men who have expected me to be some kind of submissive housekeeper and therapist for them because of my race is pretty high, and your positive stereotype kind of tetters on that edge for me.

I'll add "statistically less likely to be a killer" to my Grindr profile though, thanks for the hot tip.
posted by Conspire at 6:35 PM on April 10, 2019 [16 favorites]

I read the transcript instead of listening to the podcast and thought it was pretty interesting. I'm a Pakistani-Canadian man, so Asian but not the kind in the article, who is married to a Japanese woman, so the right kind of Asian but she was born and raised in Japan and doesn't have the relevant enculturation, so parts of my lived experience intersect with it but not in the same way it would for an East Asian-American or Canadian woman.

Like L in the podcast I think I'm open-minded with respect to who I'd date but when I think of the really short list of people I dated before my wife they were all white. There are mitigating circumstances but maybe they're really excuses. In a lot of ways I fall into the same colour-blind trap that well-meaning people who don't need to think about race do. It isn't something I can investigate now because there's only one person I need to be attracted to but it still gives me something to think about.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:41 PM on April 10, 2019

I mean... I'd argue not. Otherwise only dating women makes me homophobic? Arguably, we've been conditioned towards heterosexuality our entire life too.
posted by xdvesper at 7:38 PM on April 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Hearing about how white men flick the meter into "oh, PoC all share my politics and are so kind and aware"

I mean, idk if this was directed at me specifically but I am well aware that PoC often do not share my politics. I mean, I'm aware of this even with my PoC friends. And I have chatted about politics, etc. with my sexual/romantic partners, some of whom weren't particularly kind or aware.

Because come on, the number of men who have expected me to be some kind of submissive housekeeper and therapist for them because of my race is pretty high, and your positive stereotype kind of tetters on that edge for me.

I have my own therapist, actually, as mentioned.

I'll add "statistically less likely to be a killer" to my Grindr profile though, thanks for the hot tip.

Hope you got a big kick out of mocking my trauma! Enjoy those yummy favourites!!
posted by David Tennant's tenant, David at 8:08 PM on April 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Asian Americans are only 6% of the American population

That's for the entire country, I assume? Asians are very bunched up in certain areas. It's more like they're 0-1% in the middle states and anywhere from 10% to 50+% on the coasts, depending on the city. I live in the bay area and we're not uncommon at all here.
posted by picklenickle at 4:03 AM on April 11, 2019

L' s kinda gross story sounds like the making of a Penthouse Forum submission. I kinda got the feeling there was a certain lack of confidence, or immaturity, that drove her research. My impression she took a long roundabout way to sort of just grow up. You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess, and she's doing it her way.

I generally don't think it's that important to address this issue individually as a matter of introspection unless one is compelled to mine that personal vein for whatever reason. Perhaps most people should be content to limit/expand their attractions, as it may be, to whatever sound, consenting individuals that happen to catch their interest, and be good with it. People of all kinds will manage to find joy in each other as they see fit.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:03 AM on April 11, 2019

I generally don't think it's that important to address this issue individually as a matter of introspection unless one is compelled to mine that personal vein for whatever reason.

Combating racism, sexism, transphobia, etc absolutely requires interrogating our own biases as well as addressing the systemic ones.
posted by Anonymous at 6:33 AM on April 11, 2019

I'd like to share my own experience. I'm not unique, but I think I'm the only white man who I've heard share this story.

About five years ago my partner told me they were gender queer and then after a few years determined they wanted to transition to male. Now, he's had surgery and name change and, while still gender queer to some extent, has fully transitioned his gender presentation to male. I'm very proud of him.

And yet, where does that leave me. Me, a man raised (by my peer group) to be incredibly homophobic. Also, innately curious and experimental and philosophic. And I love to pick up new hobbies, skills and interests. And guilt and sin are fundamental to my worldview.

These factors have come together to make me fascinated by the topic of how attraction works, and if we have any choice or control.

So this podcast really spoke to me. Not as THE answer, but as an answer. The shared experiences of different people, how they have realized they had an issue and tried to resolve it.

Personally, I've found my gender-based desire to be easier to explore than my race-based desire. And that hurts, because in my liberal sphere, gender desire is seen as immutable where as race desire is seen as racist.

I will share my current belief, but I don't believe this is the answer - just where I am at right now. I believe our desires are absolutely flexible but the tools for flexing those are still unknown. I believe individual behavior cannot be a sin - it is the system that drives us all. Individual behaviors only appear as a sin because our differing systemic powers allow some of us to have unequal and disproportionate impact on each other.

I hope in the next ten years or so I can get to a place where I'm able to explore my own preferences in a way that is safe and constructive, to allow me to expand my own self awareness. However, I see that as a "nice to have," while the "need to do" is to help fix the system of inequality. And that starts today, no need to wait.

(I don't want to be like "lets all talk about me", but if anyone else is in a similar situation, please don't feel uncomfortable reaching out to me.)
posted by rebent at 8:55 AM on April 11, 2019 [2 favorites]

This was had some interesting things to think about. I never had a type while dating. My crushes and dates varied a lot across gender, race, body type, and interests. I still think a lot of people are attractive, in an admiring way. But over the years I've been married, I've found that people who look more like my husband look way hotter than other people. So there does seem to be something to reinforcing what you like about people you date. (And my spouse is largely amused at both my drooling over John Cho and Harry Shum Jr. and my belief that they look somewhat like him.)
posted by Margalo Epps at 2:44 PM on April 14, 2019