Race Cannot Be Divorced From The Sexualization Of Our Bodies

It’s never been easier to offend people than it is right now. You might enjoy the wrong sport or wear your hair in the wrong style, you might assume the wrong gender or discuss your sexuality in the wrong way, heck, you might just feel the wrong degree of nostalgia about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I’m not going to get into the vagaries of feeling offended here. Everybody has the right to feel offended, after all. The question is, if somebody doesn’t behave or think in precisely the way we want, do we have a right to hold it against them?

In my article, The Race to Focus On Race, I wrote about the 2021 Atlanta Spa shootings in which a man gunned down six Asian women (and a white man and woman) because he blamed them for enabling his sinful sex addiction.

I wrote about how the rush to take offence at a hypothetical racial component was overshadowing more meaningful discussions about gun control and religious fanaticism and the degree to which sex worker violence is overlooked.

And in amongst these themes, Charmaine found a form of offence that I wasn’t expecting; is it offensive to find certain people attractive?

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Charmaine:

While I appreciate the alternative viewpoint and the tact you used to express it, I would politely disagree. As someone with the lived experience of an Asian woman, we know that race cannot be divorced from the sexualization of our bodies. Sure, the shooter may not have been consciously racist, but targeting businesses staffed by vulnerable Asian women, businesses that are often stereotyped as places to receive "me love you long time" service—that is indicative of a racist context.

Fact: Asian women are frequently sexualized, fetishized, and dehumanized. This is verifiable through mine and the experiences of hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of Asian women. Therefore, this context should be taken into account when looking at this story, regardless of how explicit the shooter's motives were.

As for the non-Asian people being edited out of the story, I think this is a matter of subjective comprehension because I didn't get this impression. Every news story I read has listed the victims as "8 people, 6 of Asian descent." The Asian American Feminist Collective wrote a memorial to the 8 people, rest in peace, rest in power, that had all their names. Victim profiles in the BBC, NYT, etc. all include the non-Asian victims.

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Steve QJ:

“we know that race cannot be divorced from the sexualization of our bodies.”

Hi Anne, I'm not denying that Asian women are sexualised, in this case, the killer specifically visited this establishment to have sex with these women. But I don't think that the fact that he happened to frequent an Asian business, or even the possibility that he found Asian women particularly attractive (this is pure conjecture, I have no evidence for that), is racism.

I think it's a mistake to conflate sexual attraction with fetishisation, otherwise how can we legitimately be attracted to people who aren't of the same race? That's not to say that fetishisation doesn't exist of course, I've experienced it myself. But I don't think it's legitimate to presume it always because it exists sometimes.

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Charmaine:

I think there is a big difference between being attracted to people of a different race and fetishizing people of that race. This is obviously a conversation we should be having in our sex-ed classes.

So, what's the difference between fetishization and one's attractive preferences?

I'll use myself as an example: I like blondes. I don't know why, I just like the aesthetic. But that doesn't mean I go on dating apps to exclusively look for blondes. Or say, "Hi, I like blondes" the first time I meet a blonde person. Or believe that blondes are more sexual, have more fun, are more wild etc.

Someone being blonde may catch my eye, but that's it. So, the blondeness may be a point in their corner, but it won't automatically make me want to date them. The other points that person has to earn include personality compatability, values, interests, way they speak, way they act, walk, etc. Heck, my partner isn't blonde.

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Steve QJ:

“Or say, "Hi, I like blondes" the first time I meet a blonde person.”

Haha, yeah, this is just wildly creepy. I've been on the receiving end of this and worse as a black guy. But I'm not sure I agree there's a BIG difference between fetishisation and attraction. Or maybe it's fairer to say there are degrees of fetishisation.

Yes, somebody who has no interest in anybody who isn't Asian or blonde or whatever is fetishising, but I think those people are very rare. And I still wouldn't necessarily describe that as racist. Weird? Yes. Creepy? Potentially. But to use your example, even if you were attracted to every single blonde you saw and had no interest in anybody who wasn't, we could call you a fetishist, but we obviously couldn't call you racist.

p.s. I just realised your first name is Charmaine not Anne. Sorry, I assumed you'd just gone in reverse order😁

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Charmaine:

No worries about the name :) As for fetishization, maybe there are degrees. I don't know. Until we get some hard data/studies on this, we'll have to rely on our lived experiences as minorities. In my experience, at least, Asian fetishization is not rare. There's a long history of it, stemming from the Vietnam War and the Korean War and narratives like Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon. And even if we get hard data, I think many people are unaware of their unconscious biases. So it'll have to be a bigger discussion than "do you have an Asian fetish?" As a community, we need to have uncomfortable discussions about what it means to fetishize Asian people, Black people, Latinx people, etc. etc.

And I dunno, I might have to disagree with you about the hypothetical liking-only-and-everyone-who's-blonde situation. While it may not be racist (because blondes are just a small part of the white ethnicity), I'd still call it problematic and discriminatory :/

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Steve QJ:

“Until we get some hard data/studies on this, we'll have to rely on our lived experiences as minorities.”

😄 I'm not sure we'll ever get hard data on something this subjective. But I didn't say that fetishisation was rare, I said the extreme forms of it were rare. The "I only like this thing and nothing else" forms are rare.

The point I'm making is, attraction is, by definition, discriminatory. We select people with certain traits and reject people without them. It's also a form of unconscious bias. We all have it, none of us choose it, we can't change it (without enormous effort at least).

There are plenty of men and women who "like black guys". Why is this a problem? If we're going to have a relationship, of course they'll need to see me as a complete human being. Those who don't are generally gross and also easy to spot. But at the same time, the physical aspect of attraction is about my appearance. If they find the colour of my skin appealing, what's inherently wrong with that?

I still struggle to see how this is different to you finding a particular hair colour appealing.

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Charmaine:

It's not easy to navigate, for sure. I once casually dated a guy who admitted he found Asian women especially attractive. I asked him to explain why, and he described some aesthetics common in Asian women that he just preferred. I didn't think of him as having a racist fetish, though, because he was respectful of me, took the time to get to know me, and obviously saw me as a person with her own unique personality and desires.

I think it's sorta like catcalling. Some men struggle to see the problem with catcalling because isn't it a compliment? But it isn't because there is a dimension of objectification there.

Here's what I would tell someone who likes the Asian aesthetic: 1) take the time to know the person you like, and 2) compliment them on a choice (ie. hairstyle, fashion choice, shoes) and not a physical feature. #2 goes for any woman, really.

I hope that clarifies things a little better.

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Among the increasingly bizarre and wholly unrealistic social pressures we face is the pressure to pretend that we’ve transcended our instincts. That we all see the world in neutral, egalitarian terms. That our tastes and preferences and even our sexuality should be a reflection of our political and sociological affiliations.

But sexuality is the area above all others where none of that applies.

We’re allowed to discriminate when it comes to who we’re attracted to. Because attraction is discrimination. We’re allowed, without further explanation or justification, to dislike what we dislike. And that means we’re allowed, with just as little explanation or justification, to like whatever we like. There is no right or wrong way to your fellow adult human beings attractive.

Sure, like Charmaine and pretty much everybody else on the planet, I want my romantic partners to see me as a full human being. I want them to appreciate my mind and my emotional needs and my scintillating wit. But I also want them to look at me and think, “How you doin’?”

Hair, eyes, body shape, and yes, skin colour, are all part of that. With skin colour no more meaningful than any of the others. So if the right person finds my (frankly rather delightful) skin attractive, you’d better believe that I will happily hold it against them.