By Anonymous, Emerson College
Sex is a tricky thing to navigate: there’s your body, and then there’s the other person’s body, and the aim is for all needs to both be met, somehow. It’s kind of a ridiculous concept, I know, but it can all work out.
Besides just the physical logistics, there are other, bigger things at play that I personally have a hard time reconciling with my feminism. As a Chinese woman from Southeast Asia who moved to Boston for college, it was with growing discomfort, fear, and ultimately anger that I realized the harsh reality of power dynamics in a relationship with someone of a different race. This is especially apparent because of my inclination and preference to be the submissive one in bed.
There are basically two pervasive stereotypes of Asian women (and notice how Asian can be a stand-in for any ethnicity from Indonesian, to Thai, to Japanese): we are thought of as either “dragon ladies” or “China dolls”. On one end of the spectrum, Asian women are thought to be aggressively sexual, maybe even inastiably so. Way on the side, Asian women are also assumed to be subservient, eager to cater to the needs of their partner, and happy to be controlled. I’ve heard many statements about how Asian girls are keen to nab a White boyfriend, which is disturbing to me but sadly, is not at all shocking, especially because I’ve been on the inverse side of that degrading statement.
A boy I was having relations with really played his role of dominating me in bed, which I enjoyed, but red flags started popping up when he told me, several times, how much he liked Asian girls and that White girls were “too boring” (for all intents and purposes of this article, this boy was white). Seriously? How is reducing people to the color of their skin and their perceived “exotic” culture, ever okay? To lump me with millions of other girls reduces me to a certain body type, a giant living stereotype, and a person devoid of any personal interests, dreams, passions, and personalities. I don’t want to be made into the "other" that people aim to fuck because their twisted notions that all Asian women act a certain way, or that I am interesting because of my ethnicity. I want to be valued for my other attributes.
Unfortunately, I have had one or two other problematic experiences like this. It is disappointing, and frankly, heartbreaking to find out that boys I like for a myriad of different little reasons think it’s a compliment to tell me that they find “Asian women beautiful”. I began to wonder how I could continue being submissive when it came to sex. Was consenting to being called a slut during sex working against me? Was I perpetuating these harmful stereotypes that Asian women are unable to shake, even in this day and age?
After a few months of reflecting and reading anthologies that featured essays by women of color, I realized that I wasn’t the problem. My skin wasn’t the problem. It was men who chose to eroticize me because of my "exoticness." There’s no one way to figure out if someone harbors these degrading ideas, but through communication about my limits to my partner and prioritizing my own desires, I have found some very respectful relationships, both in and out of the bedroom. There is no shame in liking what gets you off – for me it happens to include a little hair-pulling and spanking. As long as my partner is respectful, and we’re having an enthusiastic, consensual, good time, I see no reason to stop.
Sex is a tricky thing to navigate: there’s your body, and then there’s the other person’s body, and the aim is for all needs to both be met, somehow. It’s kind of a ridiculous concept, I know, but it can all work out.
Besides just the physical logistics, there are other, bigger things at play that I personally have a hard time reconciling with my feminism. As a Chinese woman from Southeast Asia who moved to Boston for college, it was with growing discomfort, fear, and ultimately anger that I realized the harsh reality of power dynamics in a relationship with someone of a different race. This is especially apparent because of my inclination and preference to be the submissive one in bed.
There are basically two pervasive stereotypes of Asian women (and notice how Asian can be a stand-in for any ethnicity from Indonesian, to Thai, to Japanese): we are thought of as either “dragon ladies” or “China dolls”. On one end of the spectrum, Asian women are thought to be aggressively sexual, maybe even inastiably so. Way on the side, Asian women are also assumed to be subservient, eager to cater to the needs of their partner, and happy to be controlled. I’ve heard many statements about how Asian girls are keen to nab a White boyfriend, which is disturbing to me but sadly, is not at all shocking, especially because I’ve been on the inverse side of that degrading statement.
A boy I was having relations with really played his role of dominating me in bed, which I enjoyed, but red flags started popping up when he told me, several times, how much he liked Asian girls and that White girls were “too boring” (for all intents and purposes of this article, this boy was white). Seriously? How is reducing people to the color of their skin and their perceived “exotic” culture, ever okay? To lump me with millions of other girls reduces me to a certain body type, a giant living stereotype, and a person devoid of any personal interests, dreams, passions, and personalities. I don’t want to be made into the "other" that people aim to fuck because their twisted notions that all Asian women act a certain way, or that I am interesting because of my ethnicity. I want to be valued for my other attributes.
Unfortunately, I have had one or two other problematic experiences like this. It is disappointing, and frankly, heartbreaking to find out that boys I like for a myriad of different little reasons think it’s a compliment to tell me that they find “Asian women beautiful”. I began to wonder how I could continue being submissive when it came to sex. Was consenting to being called a slut during sex working against me? Was I perpetuating these harmful stereotypes that Asian women are unable to shake, even in this day and age?
After a few months of reflecting and reading anthologies that featured essays by women of color, I realized that I wasn’t the problem. My skin wasn’t the problem. It was men who chose to eroticize me because of my "exoticness." There’s no one way to figure out if someone harbors these degrading ideas, but through communication about my limits to my partner and prioritizing my own desires, I have found some very respectful relationships, both in and out of the bedroom. There is no shame in liking what gets you off – for me it happens to include a little hair-pulling and spanking. As long as my partner is respectful, and we’re having an enthusiastic, consensual, good time, I see no reason to stop.