4. Now for a Little Freudian Analysis

I've often noticed that I have a propensity towards Asian men; in general I find them more attractive as a population than I do other ethnic lumps. This has been a source of some guilt for me. (Fetish is such a tainted word. And terms like “yellow fever” don't much improve the situation...the still sound like a disease.) The idea of singling out an entire ethnicity (or more group of ethnicities) comes across as petty on my part and degrading to them. Because of that, I find fetishes to be ridiculous, but also because I do no understand them. I've tried, therefore, to think of some possible psychological reasons for this:


I grew up around Hispanics, add to that the fact that I am fair-skinned and light-haired, so I find dark hair and medium-light skin very attractive.

The stereotypical Asian man is more intellectual, more hardworking, more gentle, more able to carry a conversation than men of other ethnicities. These are all traits that I respect and find attractive. Perhaps it is a desire to be Asian on my part. Once you have gotten over the fact that someone is different from you in such an obvious way, then other differences mean less and less, so if I was Asian, then my white acquaintances would be more accepting of my sexuality because they had already accepted my race. That, or the some of the characteristics that people attest to my sexuality would be written off as a result of race instead. Please know that I am not trying to offend anyone. I do not wish to propagate the idea that all Asians are quite, nerdy, weak, or effeminate, but I do believe that stereotypes shape our subconscious. I will be the first to admit how wrong stereotypes are, and I know that this is one in particular is skewed by the fact that I only know Asians from an academic environment.

I have no associations with Asians in the places where I have suffered from strong discrimination. I can also say that I have no recollection of an Asian rebuking me or reacting negatively to me on the basis of sexuality. This misconception of Asians and Asian men as a sort of haven is fairly deep-rooted. In my interest in Asian music and Asian culture in my early teens, Asia became a far-off fantasy world into which I could retreat. As such a fantasy world was filled with fanciful men whom met my ideal and accepted me. This reminds me of a a quote about “illusions” from the 1995 re-make of the movie Sabrina... “He sounds perhaps like an illusion. Illusions are dangerous people; they have no flaws.”

My first toyings with the possibility of mutual romance were with Asian men. Strangely, they were Taiwanese men (each of whom grew up on a different continent) all bearing the same first name. I don't know if this is cause or effect...

Maybe I don't think that an attractive white man would be interested in me. I am not attractive to Americans in general, or at least I am certainly not masculine in the Western sense.

Well, we have transgendered, why not transethnic? Or transcultural? Or transnationalist? I guess that would make me Japanese, my father Hispanic, my grandfather French. Julia Child and Thomas Jefferson would be French as well. This makes perfect sense to me. Where's my kimono?