GROUP 2:
Asian Women Fetishization
Podcasters: Katelyn, Thien, Thomas
Transcriber: Kaitlyn
Tech: Thien
Credits:
1/Thien Nguyen
2/Katelyn Yu
3/Thomas Kemp
4/Kaitlyn Tarampi
Introduction
Our group’s discussion revolves around the Atlanta Spa Shooting. On March 16, 2021, 21-year-old Robert Long entered the Young Asian Massage Parlor in Cherokee County, Atlanta, with a firearm. He purchased and received services offered by the spa, then proceeded to shoot the women who offered him the service. On that same day, Long attacked two additional spas in Southern Atlanta. By the third spa, Long had reached 8 counts of murder, six of whom were Asian women. Through interrogation, Long admitted that he sought sexual services at these spas before the attacks and claimed “sex addiction” as his motive, saying that the women he killed were “temptations he wanted to eliminate.” Although Atlanta’s mayor claimed the businesses operated legally without red flags, two out of the three spas had previous prostitution-related investigations. This case is especially controversial because it suggests both Asian hate crime during COVID and Asian woman fetishization. In the podcast, we are going to talk more profoundly and explore different perspectives on those topics to answer the following questions: Why were Asian women historically fetishized? How and why does this fetishization persist?
Discussion Questions
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Why were Asian women historically fetishized? How and why does this fetishization persist?
Podcast Audio & Transcript
Link To Podcast Audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oYJGX9kiTAl2W2rOHw3owQYUuHVZ5lhA/view?usp=sharing
Research
Cultural Case Studies:
Huang, Emily. “War and Sex Work: The Atlanta Spa Shootings—An Extension of White Sexual Imperialism.” Columbia Political Review, 29 Sept. 2022, https://www.cpreview.org/articles/2022/9/war-and-sex-work-the-atlanta-spa-shootings-an-extension-of-white-sexual-imperialism
→ This source discusses and examines the motivation behind the Atlanta Spa Shooting murders. It analyzes how the case is related to fetishization and the exotification of Asian women.
Group’s Relevant Cultural Case Study
“Live Updates: Shooting at Atlanta-Area Spas.” The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/17/us/shooting-atlanta-acworth
→ The source provides more details regarding the location, murder counts, and motive of the Atlanta Spa Shooting. It also demonstrates how the shootings fueled public outrage and increased fear in the Asian American community amid the anti-Asian movement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Assigned viewing:
oliSUNvia. “The Self-Fetishization of East Asians: Koreaboos & Weebs Aren’t the Only Problem.” YouTube, 2022, “the self-fetishization of east-asian: koreaboos & weeps aren’t the only problem” | oliSUNvia (2022)
→ oliSUNvia discusses the history of Asian fetishization and how social media perceives Asians. She examines how fetishization continues to persist and why it exists based on East Asia’s media.
Scholarly source:
Cheng, Anne Anlin. “Ornamentalism: A Feminist Theory for the Yellow Woman.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 44, no. 3, 2018, pp. 415–466. “Oranamentalism: A Feminist Theory for the Yellow Woman” AnneAnlinCheng (2018) https://www.scielosp.org/article/csc/2024.v29n2/e03592023/en/
→ This article discusses the way Asian women are perceived as exotic and how they are fetishized. It examines how Asian women are often seen as an aesthetic and oriental.
Popular news media source:
Chow, Ray, and Xiaoquan Hu. “Odds Favor White Men, Asian Women on Online Dating Sites.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013, “Odds Favor White Men, Asian Women On Dating App” | Chow & Hu (2013)
→ This source shows a preference trend on dating apps: among women (except Black women), the majority showed the most interest in White men, and among men (except Asian men), the strongest preference was for Asian women. It demonstrates both the influence of white men and the perceived submissiveness of Asian women.
Truong, Kyla. “Anime’s Hypersexualization of Japanese Women Is Coming to America: From a Japanese Woman’s Perspective.” New University, 3 Nov. 2022,
https://newuniversity.org/2022/11/03/animes-hypersexualization-of-japanese-women-is-c
oming-to-america-from-a-japanese-womans-perspective/
→ This source talks about a Japanese woman’s experience with hypersexualization and fetishization. The author mentions how uncomfortable it makes her and how anime has the biggest part in why fetishization towards Asian women persists, and how it contributes to it.
Cultural Artifacts
1.
→ This artifact exemplifies how Asian women are wanted purely for their aesthetic. There is a genre of wanting specifically Japanese/Korean women in these types of photos.
2.
→ A comment section that brings up the difference between fetishization and having a preference in the dating pool. They call out commenters for being ignorant about how they are fetishizing Asian women.
→ An AI-generated photo of a white man in a “I Love Japan” shirt chasing after a native Japanese woman. It shows how white men fetishize Asian women and are seen as “weebs” because their sole goal in visiting Japan is to find a Japanese woman to date.
