A few weeks ago, we received the following email from a reader named Alessandra:

I’ve heard a lot of Asian guys complain that “non-Asian girls aren’t into them”, and they often blame emasculating stereotypes for this phenomenon. However, I’m a non Asian girl (white/Dominican) and I feel that when I flirt with Asian guys, they are unresponsive. I’m pretty and have a good sense of humor, so I’m puzzled as to why this is happening. This doesn’t happen to me when I flirt with boys of other races. In fact, I’ve heard this from other non Asian females as well. Philip has given much advice to Asian guys on how to get non Asian girls, but I think non Asian girls need a manual on getting Asian guys. Seriously, the most harmonious of unions can be created between Asian guys and non Asian girls…we just need a lot of help getting there.

This is a topic that I’ve certainly written about more than once on this blog, but Alessandra’s right in that my advice has tended to be directed more at helping the brothas (see examples here and here). I’ve told Alessandra that I’ll try my best to address this issue in the future so to start me off on this endeavor, I asked our non-Asian female readers, via our Twitter and Facebook pages, who have a thing for Asian men to share their thoughts. But before we get to a few of those responses below, here’s some context on this subject:

Ten years ago, Newsweek ran a piece entitled “Why Asian Guys Are On A Roll?” The thesis of the article was that Asian men, who have historically not been thought of as sexually attractive in Western culture, were now hot. A decade later, we may have more Asian males in the pop culture zeitgeist who are seen as desirable, but I’m not sure if I would say a lot has changed. After all, the defining Asian male icon of the 2000s might still be William Hung.

The Pew Research Institute just released a new study of interracial marriages and found that such unions have increased dramatically (doubling from 1980 to 2008), but some stats still remain the same: Asian women still have one of the highest rates of out-marriage (40%), double the rates for Asian men. So again, progress for Asian guys is slower here, too.

But still, if you spend any amount of time doing research on the internet, you’ll find that in the last few years, there have been a lot more sites devoted to Asian male and non-Asian female unions so was Newsweek right? Are perceptions of Asian men changing? Some of our readers certainly think so. Following are some of their responses.

San Francisco Bay Area resident Jennifer describes herself as “one Caucasian woman who only dates Asian men.” She says many of her girlfriends, who are not Asian, also prefer dating Asian men:

I just describe my affinity for Asian men as a preference, like some men might prefer blondes or redheads. I’ve always been more attracted to Asian features and appreciate the family values that seem to be more prevalent in Asian families. In my experience they also tend to be far more respectful towards women. You get big points for being a gentleman in my book. Some of my girlfriend’s might have responses that vary, but we all agree Asian men are hot ;)

I can see how some women have difficulty finding an Asian man to date. Quite a few of the men I’ve dated I’ve been their first non-Asian girlfriend or date. One guy never seemed to be able to get over the fact that I preferred Asian men. Like he had been trained and taught it just wasn’t possible to have a non-Asian female find your attractive. Some feel their family might not approve of dating outside their race, or yes, some are simply shy. Some of my guy friends blame our society and Hollywood for how they are portrayed (or lack there of), but I think it’s mostly family pressure. It’s always more acceptable for an Asian female to date a white man, but not the other way around.

And from our loyal reader Kurly Kolly who first noticed the hotness of Asian men in high school when she was partnered up with two Asian guys in her technology class. She explains:

There really isn’t any particular reason why I love Asian guys. Maybe Asian men have Kryptonite in their pockets. When they walk into a room I am usually stunned and speechless. People often wonder if I’m okay. “Are you having an asthma attack?” “Do you need water?” “What are you doing? Please put your clothes back on, you’re at work!” To which I reply: “I can’t feel my legs!”

Both Jennifer and Kurly Kolly grew up around Asian and Asian American people and culture and even spent time in Asia. That might at least partially explain their preference. But Betty, a self-described “corn-fed white girl from Iowa,” had a different upbringing:

I don’t think I saw a single Asian person in real life until I moved to Seattle after college. Before then, I never thought of Asian guys or if I did they were nerds like the one character in Sixteen Candles. But the first Asian guy I met was my co-worker and it was like I got hit by a truck. I’d never felt like that before, it was like, “where have you been all my life?” I still have no idea where that came from and I still haven’t recovered. LOL

Next, I talked to my friend Liv, who is very blond and very white and very hot (trust me on this), who worked as a model in Japan for several years. She didn’t know what to expect when she first went to Tokyo at age 18 except for stories she had heard that Japanese men were perverts and had a fetish for blond white women, but she could make a lot of money. At the time, her father had walked out on the family and she had to support her mother and two younger brothers and didn’t feel she had a choice but to take a job offer from a modeling agency based in Japan:

There are other girls who went to Japan and had bad experiences, but for me it was great. Nothing like what I expected from the horror stories. Do Japanese men have white girl fetishes? Sure, some do, but I found the Japanese men I met to be really respectful and dignified and I found that really sexy. I don’t know how else to describe it, they were different than all the men I had met in the U.S. I admit it, I probably have a fetish for Asian men. Maybe it’s also my own personal issues…my father was a royal dick and subconsciously I might be avoiding white men because of my daddy issues. Certainly, the Asian men I’ve dated have treated me much better than any of the white guys I’ve dated. 

I ask Liv about her fetish. She’s aware that Asian women are oftentimes stereotyped as exotic and desirable by non-Asians and that could be a negative thing. I ask her if she thinks what she feels for Asian men could also be negative:

Maybe, but I think it’s different. Asian women are exoticized all the time. But Asian men are presented as such sexual eunuchs that, shit, you should just be happy I’m into Asian guys :)

And that is the crux of it. I do know a lot of Asian American guys who have issues with Asian women dating non-Asian men, but who not only support Asian men dating non-Asians, but downright encourage it without seeing any sort of contradiction.

So what do you think? Are Asian men seen as more sexually desirable now? Are there still obstacles or specific issues for Asian guys in getting with non-Asian women? Is there a difference between Asian men dating non-Asians and Asian women dating non-Asians? It’s 2010 and are these issues still even valid or have things progressed beyond them? Share your thoughts below.

Do you have any questions you’d like the Offenders to answer? Email them to: mailbag@yomyomf.com. We can’t promise to get to all of them, but will occasionally address some of the interesting ones.