Yellow Fever, Creepy White Guys, and Representations of Asian Women in Pornography

Creepy White Guys is a Tumblr that posts online dating messages sent by white males as a means of shaming Orientalism and the fetishization of Asian women. The posts reference a range of stereotypes that include but are not limited to: sexuality (size and shape of genitalia), food (comparisons to dumplings and sushi), and/or perceived characteristics of Asian females (innate submissiveness or a need to be protected). Their content makes it apparent that what these men are interested in is not the individual woman they are messaging, but a racialized idea of who she is based on her race – a fetish referred to as "yellow fever."

Yellow fever can trace its roots back to imperialism and colonialism as well as scenes from popular culture. As discussed in the reading, media such as Sayonara and Madame Butterfly perpetuated stereotypes of submissive Asian women, willingly dominated by symbolically powerful white American men. These images still persist today (here are some examples), but they are arguably seen less often, due to the rise of other (still problematic) stereotypes, the "Dragon Lady" and the model minority/obsessively driven perfectionist being some of them.

However, the "submissive Asian women" continues to live on (and perhaps even thrives) in porn. "Asian" is the sixth most searched for porn term in the country and the top racial category (source). A quote from Gail Dines' Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality explains its popularity: 

"Depicted as perfect sex objects with well-honed sexual skills, Asian women come to porn with a baggage of stereotypes that makes them the idealized women of the porn world... we see a mind-numbing replaying of the image of Asian women as sexually exotic, enticing, and submissive. Using words such as naive, obedient, petite, cute, and innocent, the Web sites are full of images of Asian women, who, we are told, will do anything to please a man, since this is what they are bred for. It seems from these sites, however, that Asian women are interested in pleasing only white men because Asian men are almost completely absent as sex partners." (124)

This post is not meant to be an attack on pornography itself, but a criticism of the stereotypes it perpetuates through racialized depictions. Even if representations of Asian women in popular media become more complex, the persistence of their pornographic image will continue to contribute to their fetishization as "China dolls" and "lotus flowers." If so, there will always be creepy white guys with yellow fever, waiting to "ni hao" the next Asian woman they see.

Questions: Pornography often serves as a means of fantasizing about situations that are often illegal and/or not socially acceptable. As such, a lot of "Asian porn" depicts violence against women in order to cater to viewers with certain sexual proclivities, helping perpetuate stereotypes like the ones mentioned above. However, the porn industry does not face the same kinds of social and financial backlash that traditional media does, making it difficult to change racist representations. Do you think that there is any way to make racialized porn less racist? Would traditional media have to change (by normalizing non-stereotyped characters) before the porn industry follows suit? Are there any incentives that could influence studios to stop producing racialized porn?