Yellow Fever

The other day, I was talking with a friend about the concept of yellow fever. (For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to a non-asian person having a sexual preference for people of east asian descent.) We observed that white men seem to prefer asian women more than white women seem to prefer asian men; it is undeniable that there are more white male/asian female couples than there are white female/asian male couples. When trying to figure out the mechanisms of sexual preference when it comes to asians, we hit upon the idea that sexuality (surprise, surprise) and the way it interacts with asian-american stereotypes in our society serve to perpetuate yellow fever.

While we were trying to figure all this out, we had to first ask ourselves why yellow fever was an issue at all. In one regard, attraction to a specific group of people or type of person is a completely normal, and possibly necessary, part of life. Some people prefer tall people, others like large breasts, still others look for long hair. More to the point, a lot of people date only within their own ethnic groups, which makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, as generations of exposure to a certain set of features (skin color, hair type, bone structure) may have made those features more desireable to people. It's obvious that human sexuality comes in many forms, so the preference for a certain characteristic is not, in itself, usually a problem.

Now, why is it any worse for a white male to like asian women than for an asian male to like asian women? I would argue that it's not a person's perspective that makes yellow fever an issue, i.e. it's not one guy being asian that makes it okay for him and the other guy being white that makes it not okay. Where it becomes an issue is when the preference for a specific characteristic (e.g. ethnic group) is taken as the redeeming or rejecting criterion for determining sexual attractiveness. This may seem harsh and kind of obvious to most people, but many times these processes operate subconsciously.

When talking about yellow fever, one must address the effects of asian american stereotypes in our society. Early on in this country, asian males were portrayed as awkward and subservient, or as the evil conniving genius. What, then, are the legacies of yellowface images, Charlie Chan, and Fu Manchu? These images project asexuality onto asian males. These days, we are left with the image of the asian math nerd (which incidentally is rarely depicted as female), and the continuing stereotype of asian males as asexual. What about asian women? They're typically portrayed as china dolls (think Miss Saigon) or as dragon ladies (think Lucy Liu in Kill Bill). This situation presents the opposite problem; asian women tend to be oversexualized.

These stereotypes, having been socialized into each of us, would then serve as mechanisms to drive sexual endeavors if they are not properly addressed. Asian girls would seek nonasian guys as a response to the socialized asexual perception of asian guys, and nonasian girls would shun asian guys for the same reason. Interestly, gay asian males are understood to have broached the issue of sexuality, so they would be understood to not be asexual and would not suffer the effects of this stereotype.

After realizing how asian american stereotypes can affect our lives, the question becomes: how do we use this information to improve the situation? This is a hard question to answer. Merely understanding what the stereotypes are and how they affect us is a huge start; we can then learn to recognize these processes going on around us and actively question them. In the end, we just need to learn that a certain set of characteristics (in this case, being asian) is just one part of who a person is, and that when we make decisions based on this limited piece of information we are missing an opportunity for a relationship, whether it be professional, friendly, or romantic.