We are all more than the sum of our parts.
More then the culture we come from or where on the globe we were born.
What happens when you find out that someone is having a difficult time separating the person from the stereotypes?
That was the issue facing Redditor and Original Poster (OP) perfectlyworthless99 when he came to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for judgment.
He asked:
“AITA for warning my friend that the guy she’s dating has a fetish for Asian chicks”
OP began with a brief setup of the situation.
“I have these two friends who recently started dating.”
“Marc and Alexis.”
“Marc is a white guy and Alexis is Korean.”
“I’m black but that’s not really relevant. I’m in separate friend groups with both of them.”
“In my group with Marc it’s mostly guys so we, of course, speak differently.”
He quickly explained Marc’s interests.
“One of the things the group gives Marc sh*t for is that he has a thing for Asian chicks and Asian (b it mostly Japanese culture).”
“It’s the kinda thing we joke him about but it’s actually very weird.”
“He has said multiple times he wants to go to Japan and find himself a traditional Japanese wife. He has hiragana tattoos, is obsessed with Karen Fukuhara, is just really into sh*t like that.”
“When he told us he was dating a new girl, I assumed it would be an asian girl but I didn’t know it’d be Alexis.”
Then got to the issue itself.
“Because I’m also close with Alexis, I felt like it would be a good move to at least warn her.”
“I feel that a small mistake I made was warning her kinda publicly.”
“I’ll admit fault there, but the topic of Marc was up and I just kinda said it.”
“I said I’d be careful about him as he has a certain thing for Asian girls. I told her that Marc was a good guy, but he just has a weird interest in Asian women.”
“She kinda wrote it off to me.”
“But then apparently she told him what I said. He was pissed at me.”
“He said that what I told her was incredibly inappropriate and that I was just jealous that he’s with her and I am not.”
“Alexis is also mad at me for trying to stick my nose in her relationship and trying to embarrass her in front of the rest of our friends.”
“I feel like this is really unfair as I would appreciate it if someone told me that a girl I was seeing had a fetish for black men.”
OP was left to wonder.
“AITA?”
Having explained the situation, OP turned to Reddit for outside opinions.
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided: NTA
Some gave thorough reasoning for their opinion.
“As an Asian woman, I would have really appreciated the heads up. I’ve had extremely uncomfortable experiences with men who had things for Asians.”
“One guy stalked me. NTA”
“To people who aren’t WOC, think about the things women have to worry about when interacting with men, from sexual assault/harassment or using them as housemaids.”
“Men who fetishize Asians fetishize them because of p*rn, their “youthful” looks, and/or their stereotypical submissiveness. So.” ~ righttriangles
“I am going to go with NTA. At the core of who we are as human beings we want to be loved for who we are not what we are.”
“You are her friend and out of loyalty you just wanted to give her a heads up as to the why he was attracted to her and that it may not have been her personality, her character, her intellect, etc but may have been driven by her looks.”
“Now maybe you should have done it privately and asked her to keep it between you two.”
“So perhaps try to find a way to apologize to her privately for the way it was delivered but that you care for her as a friend and nothing more and that you would never want to see her hurt.”
“Good for you for being a good friend” ~ stinstin555
Of course, there were plenty of personal stories.
“I’m a white woman with half asia paternal grandmother and honestly. the sh*t men do.”
“Like. it’s like they can f*cking smell a hint of asian-ness in an all-white coating and it inspires a horniness in racists that just. urgh.”
“I dated a guy who was OBSESSED with his Korean ex but I was too young and naive to realize the horn he felt wasn’t actually about me in any way.”
“When I get tired I leave out words when I speak and he’d be like…. its so sexy when you speak broken english … F*CKING WHAT”
“and then I slept with a guy who was like… you’re the first non-asian I’ve slept with in 16 years.”
“But its okay because your great grandpa was Chinese! SORRY WHAT. like first of all I didn’t realize you were old enough to have been having s*x for 16 years….” ~ prosemortem
“When I was presenting female and dating men, I had this weird date where the guy happened to be Asian and tried to like… fetishize himself?”
“Kept asking if I’ve ever dated Asian, was calling himself unique compared to other races I dated, asked what I thought about Asian people, saying he was good looking “for an Asian” (who the fuck even says that???).”
“It was surreal. No second date.” ~ patchy_doll
“I (white girl) was hanging out with and almost hooked up with a black dude at a hotel recently.”
“It was going well, and I had given no thought to either of our races.”
“Then he dropped on me that he only f*cks white girls, because no black woman could ever compare in beauty or intelligence to his mom and sisters.”
“Then he went on a long tangent about how beautiful and educated his harvard-graduate sisters were, ‘for black women.’ I don’t even know exactly what was being repressed there, but my uber arrived very quickly lol” ~ onomatopoeiano
Others pointed out that while OP did the right thing, he could’ve handled it better.
“NTA, although maybe you should have done this more tactfully.”
“I’m an Asian woman married to a white man.”
“When we first met at work, we were chatting about some NASCAR race he and his friends went to recently.”
“The conversation lead to him telling me that his type was blond and he loved a woman in cowboy boots lol. I was like, ‘OK, typical.’
“When we started dating, he told me I was the first Asian woman he’s ever dated and he worked hard to learn about my culture, impress my parents, and cook my cultural food.”
“This is what not having a fetish looks like.” ~ Pugs_and_Drugs4Eva
“NTA.”
“I do feel like you could’ve done it in a private manner and maybe not in front of your friends.”
“It’s a hard situation because as a black woman, I’d want to know if my partner was fetishizing me.”
“But unfortunately some people have zero problem with being fetishized.”
“As far as your friend Marc, maybe if he is receptive, I’d encourage him to do some self-reflecting because it most definitely is obvious he has an Asian fetish, and we don’t even need to get into why that’s wrong and so f*ckin weird.”
“NTA”
“Edit:”
“I just wanted to add, a lot of people are saying ‘it’s a preference’ but there’s a difference between a racial preference and a racial REQUIREMENT.”
“Marc will only date Asian women, actively only seeks out Asian woman, and has a weird fantasy about what they should be.”
“That’s dehumanizing as f*ck not to mention it’s kinda racist to actively exclude other races of women JUST because of their race.” ~ Divine_skylin3
“NTA but like everyone said, you should have picked a private moment first.”
“You’re gonna get lots of ⚪️ opinions saying stay out of it, but every WOC i know including myself has appreciated a heads up like this (the exceptions being the women who only go after yt men for internalized racism ish but they’re another issue entirely).”
“The ones I know who kept trying with the guy eventually left him for all the same reasons: he reduced her to features of her race and culture, instead of seeing her as her own person.” ~mignyau
Not everyone saw someone to blame here.
“NAH.”
“I, unfortunately, think this is one of those things that could go either way.”
“Considering that he has made statements about finding a Japanese wife and has hiragana tattoos, I myself would find that creepy and probably appreciate the insight from you.”
“However, just like Alexis some girls will overlook being fetishized (because they themselves want white men)…and with couples like that they just have their preferences.”
“What may be more important is how Marc treats women once he’s in a relationship.”
“Does he make comments to them indicating his fetish and/or does he stereotype them or act racist?”
“It’s fair that you tried to help your friend, and it’s fair that both of them want you to mind your business.” ~ puffling0326
Relationships can be tricky and getting involved in someone else’s can be even trickier.
Be careful about who you choose to spend your time with – but make sure that everyone involved knows why everyone else is there.