Cultural Imperialism 101: Colonizing the Panties

One of the greater divisions in the cultural gap between east and west is evident in the popular western sexual fetish for Asian pornography. Asian pornography does not necessarily refer to pornography produced in Japan or Korea, but based on the ethnic stereotypes for people who would otherwise all be categorized as Orientals. Oriental here is referring to not actually being from the Orient (as the term is now far too archaic and politically incorrect), but to the idea and concept that those who are perceived as having Asian heritage are forever foreign, exotic, and mysterious, left to the minds of the misinformed and uneducated to fantasize and speculate, thereby objectifying the culture and people they have misrepresented and misperceived, especially in their pornography.

The basic stereotype for women is that she is exotic, forever a foreigner, knows ancient pleasure techniques, submissive, and willingly offers herself to the westerner, whom she finds far more pleasing and greets as a liberator rather than lecher. The stereotype for the male is that he is sexually impotent due to his supposedly smaller body size (and consequentially his penis size as well), selfish, and oppressive to women. Both stereotypes speak more about the racial bias from early or initial impressions that westerners have of the Asian peoples rather than being drawn from factual evidence, as well as a complete disregard for culture.

One of the common fantasies in Asian pornography are usually about how some sexually-charged women are visiting the west in search of sexual partners or encounters with western men, whom they perceive as physically more attractive and capable with larger penises and muscular frames. Parallels to the Nazi Germany ideology of the Aryan as a symbol of human perfection comes to mind when observing this mindset.

Another fantasy involves a young girl lost and seemingly unaware of the environment she has found herself in, to which the lecherous pornographers seek to take advantage of her by telling her things such as how she will be a model and that they simply wanted to get to know her better, which involves much sexual touching and objectifying much like they were inspecting goods, before they proceed to make sexual advances on her.

Dialog also proves to be tasteless: when two performers are discussing the physical differences of each other's anatomy and resulting incompatibility as one example seen on a popular American site specializing in the Asian fetish, the male performer says, "the egg roll does not fit in the take-out box!" Hearing lines like this, one feels more inclined to laugh before shaking his or her head in disbelief.

It is such garbage like this that generates income for the pornography industry at the expense of ethnic groups being misunderstood and the viewers absorbing the misinformation, fostering ignorance in the long run. Surprisingly, some of the people who benefit are the performers, as a number of the female performers are college students earning tuition money. Some could argue that it is no different from prostitution, but one performer in the U.S. said "wouldn't you blame the education system for forcing me to subject myself to this, with student loans and financial aid harder and harder to come by?"

Other people have different opinions. One college student from China at UCLA who was asked about how the stereotype affects people's perceptions of her said that "I feel people are approaching me because they want to try something new instead of actually getting to know me or about my culture, like I'm some sort of new food they want to try for the sake of trying as they attempt to hit on me and tell me how much they like my culture. It's very degrading and disrespectful, and I don't tolerate it." Since arriving in the U.S., she feels that people are constantly trying to take advantage of her the way they do in pornography. "I'm not interested in their approach, their methods, or pornography. I'm just another person not from the U.S., I don't want to fulfill someone's fantasies from what pornography they have watched," she said after the stereotype and the popular fantasies.

If the west wants to start taking other cultures far more seriously, then perhaps some methods of control should be utilized in spite of constantly fighting for creative expression and corporate profits. Perhaps we need to be reminded that such ignorance can be dangerous, recalling specifically the American soldiers in Okinawa, Japan or Angeles City, Philippines where they were charged for raping local girls, under the impression that they can get away with their actions for being men of privilege, coupled with the misconception that these women were helpless and completely submissive-- common misrepresentations of both the western men and Asian women in pornography.