WritingWithColor (Posts tagged hypersexualization)

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Black ghost wife and living husband: hesitant open relationship so she can have intimacy (NSFW)

Anonymous asked:

I’m writing a romcom where the leading lady is a black ghost woman, and I’ve made sure to write them as healthy a couple as I could. About halfway through the story, she goes to her not-dead husband (He’s a WASP, and also big on fidelity because of the P part), tells him that she misses sex, and asks if he’d be alright if she started a friends-with-benefits thing with the ghost who’s haunting the neighbors.

He’s not exactly thrilled at the thought of that, but they can’t have sex anymore, so they have a long chat where she makes it abundantly clear that there’ll be nothing romantic between her and and the neighbor ghost, and eventually the couple sort it all out and reach a compromise where he doesn’t feel like he’s getting cheated on and she can have her needs met.

And I realize this is speeding headlong at 120mph towards the promiscuous black girl stereotype, and so I’ve done everything I can think of to try to negate it. She’s very affectionate to him, I make it clear they only love each other, and of course, they have that little heart-to-heart before she goes to the neighbor ghost, but there’s no avoiding it because she’s the one who brought it up in the first place. So is there any other way I can make sure I only breeze over the stereotype like a speedbump instead of plowing right into it?

On stereotypes

Going in while aware of the stereotype sounds like a great start. I think having them talk about their relationship in an open and candid way shows their intentions. It sounds to me like they are negotiating how to open up their relationship to a third party (on her side) and if they discuss rules over exclusivity with their partners that it would counter the promiscuity issue.

That would however also open up the promiscuity stereotypes around polygamy though and keeping that in mind, broadening the perspective of what relationships might look like and what they are okay or not okay with would be good.

Aside from that, you’ll need to be mindful of how sexualized she’s portrayed on the page too, so having her be fleshed out, including having more than a “horny mode” (excuse me for a lack of better words).
~ Mod Alice

Ensure both sides consent to the arrangement

I’m not polyamorous, but I’ve read quite a few anecdotes where opening the relationship, so one partner can have sex, when the other person is unhappy about it, becomes the beginning of the end. Of course, neither were ghosts, but the point still stands.

So, please ensure your Black ghost wife is NOT coercing her husband into giving his blessing for her to have sex with others. That is, unless she is intentionally meant to be seen as more villainous or a possibly disliked character.

The polyamorous part, in itself, is not the potential pitfall; it is the fact that the husband is not okay with it. If he’s barely agreeing, then yes that can absolutely paint the Black character in a negative light beyond just hypersexualization. Again, if that’s your intention, so be it and perhaps add a more positive or neutral representation of a Black woman as well.

Now, if he agrees and either does become fine with it or grows into being okay with it, I think that’s an improvement, and consider all the things Alice mentioned above regarding your Black woman ghost’s characterization.

If it is not your intent to put her in a negative light, please ensure:

  • She is not forcing him into agreeing
  • It is truly a mutual decision
  • Perimeters are set where they are both comfortable, happy and secure

Other ideas that may work

And this is an aside, but more of a story exploration, so take it with a grain of salt:

  • Is it possible she could possess someone’s body in order for them to touch and connect physically?
  • Meet on the astral plane? In dreams?

I’ve seen this done in a couple of works.

SPOILERS UPCOMING: The Lovely Bones and the Umbrella Academy

The Lovely Bones book by Alice Sebold comes to mind. The dead character, Susie, kisses and has sex with her crush. The living woman, that she possesses, consents to being a “vessel” for them to have this moment together.

Note: I do not support this author, as a person, and only share this scenario as an example.

There were also a few scenes in the Umbrella Academy TV series.

The Umbrella AcademyALT

One of the dead characters possesses his necromancer brother in order to connect to a woman he has a crush on. There are other scenes where he happily experiences physical touch again, such as a hug from his other brother, eating fruit, and so on.

That is to say; there may even be platonic ways where your character misses touch and intimacy. Perhaps the husband is comfortable with her cuddling another to recreate that bond of touch. It does not all have to be about sex, although that may be part of it.

Also, how does, say, “autoeroticism” work in the ghost form? Is it possible? I feel like it’s something the husband would have brought up during the conversation, since he initially was not okay with the idea of her being with another person.

Possible resource for you

The video game Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden shows the complex relationship between a living and dead partner. This might be of inspiration when writing their dynamic overall!

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden - Focus EntertainmentALT

Black and poly followers, feel free to chime in with any insights.

Mod Leigh adds some super key additions to this that should really help this story, so please check it out! 

~Colette

Commenting as someone nonblack but polyamorous, with permission from Alice and Colette.

Men Have Needs, Too

To echo Colette: the biggest thing for me here is the inequality in the agreement with the husband. In all of this discussion, you’ve never really explained how he views having a dead wife he can no longer have sex with. Has this impacted him much? Has he been silently suffering? What’s his view in all of this as someone sexual himself and his needs aren’t being met either? Men are allowed to have healthy sexualities, too, and I’d honestly love to see more of it.

And for me that’s a tiny bit of a problem; the “why” he is unhappy with it feels like it comes from taking a stock Christian archetype and then letting it sit there. Like, this archetype doesn’t come out of nowhere—a lot of Protestants are really, really, really serious about marriage and not divorcing, even though permission to divorce is kind of the foundation of Anglican denominations but I digress—but it doesn’t have to be such a stock trope. 

Because really—what does he feel about their life? Has he considered going out and dating because of this, but he hasn’t brought it up because of his own hang-ups? Does he have crushes, or does he want to use the oft-done “cheat pass” that some even devout Protestant couples set up? Is his bristling at change in the relationship dynamic give way to relief he has freedom to go get his own needs met, too?

He had life plans gone awry, just like she did. What freedom is he getting out of this, and how is this mutually beneficial? It has to be mutually beneficial for this to not look like the male character is being sidelined. He has grief, and needs, and plans too. What’s he going to get out of this other than “not feeling cheated on”?

WASP does not mean personality-less, and I want to see more development of his character. Devotion comes in many, many forms, not just rigid fidelity to someone who can’t meet all your needs.

Christianity, Marriages, and Ghosts

This section is written with the assumption of a devout lens, because you emphasize he takes marriage seriously from his faith. If this section feels like a lot for the story, consider dialing him back to a more Easter/Christmas Christian, or cultural Christian, instead of devout. The previous section about his needs and the following section about polyamoury still apply even if you do dial his faith back, however.

Keep reading

Black women hypersexualization poly polyamorous bwwm romantic comedy comedy characterization nsfw sex supernatural beings WASP religion marriage relationships interracial relationships interracial romance asks christianity

Black, divorced, formerly teen parents, Black lgbt+ with white partners

tiredandtears asked:

Hi, I am currently working on a story about a single black mother who left her son’s father (who is also black) on amicable terms a couple years before the story’s beginning.  The mother is the main parenting figure in the son’s life, but she keeps in contact with the father who lives in the next town or two over and visits often.  They’re friendly with each other and co-parent as best they can.

Something that I am worried about is that when I started outlining the story, I wrote that they had their son a year or so after graduating high school, so they both started working to support their son.  I’m nervous that this might relate to a stereotype that black people have unplanned children as older teens/young adults.  (I’m not sure if that is a common stereotype, but I have heard it voiced in the past.)

Another thing I’m a little nervous about is that as the mother works, she starts to fall for one of her coworkers (a white bisexual woman).  I’m scared that this could play into the somewhat common occurrence that black LGBTQ+ characters only seem to appear when they have a white partner, and I don’t want to add to that if it is indeed an issue.

Teen Black parents

There is indeed a stereotype that young Black people are mothers / parents. There’s a lot more to this, but part of the matter comes from the adultification of Black children, especially girls in this case. There’s also this insistence, within and outside the community, that Black girls are “fast” or “act grown.” This hypersexualizes Black minors. I’ve heard many stories of a young Black girl being somewhere with their baby sibling / cousin / any young child and having strangers assume she is the parent, even when they’re children or teenagers themselves. It’s absolutely happened to me when I was younger, too. 

Based on birth rate statistics from the CDC, there are reportedly more BIPOC teen parents than white ones in the USA. At the same time, teen birth rates have also decreased in recent years (at the time of this post). But it’s not about whether Black teen parents exist, as teen parents exist in all races. More than white does not mean that every young Black girl / person should be assumed to be a teen parent.

Consider that:

  • There’s nothing wrong with people who may “fit” stereotypes. I’ve talked about this extensively here. They’re people too, even if society places a stigma or judgment of them. 
  • There is usually nuance to any “stereotype”, such as in discrepancies in access to proper birth control or bc education, underreported data, etc. And on that note
  • Check your intentions as well as your logic in writing on these topics. Are you the right voice? How far are you exploring the depths of the issue? You’ll need to be well-researched when making commentary on any matter, especially from an outside perspective. 
  • Depicting Black teen parents may not be well received by Black readers. And it’s well within their rights to be uncomfortable. You could avoid the matter completely by making them fairly young parents, but not teenagers.

Long story short; if you’re going to write Black teen parents, portray these parents respectfully without demonizing their actions. They sound like responsible and good parents, and likely have a support group to help them be that way. If you wanted, you could add in a white friend or two that were also teen parents. Still, some people will not be fans of someone outside of the group writing on this. And question what their intentions are.

~Mod Colette

Black lgbtqia+ with white partner

Well. interracial lbtqia+ couples absolutely exist! But since you’re worried, and I do think it’s lacking in media, it would absolutely help to add in Black lgbtqia+ representation.

~Mod Colette

Queer representation of exclusively Black couples is rare. Why can’t the new love interest also be Black, too?

-Mod Norma

It seems to me that representation in romance, especially for queer romance is either white or with one white love interest. Rarely does it not involve at least one white love interest. It would be refreshing to have her have a Black love interest especially. It would be very welcome.

~Mod Alice

stereotypes black hypersexualization adultification black stereotypes black teen parents single black mother asks

Avoiding Fetishizing East Asian Men

Anon asked:

Hello. I love this site. There are several questions regarding this topic for women but not for men, so here goes:

First off, I am of Asian & native descent. I can “pass”, so often people just assume I am white, which doesn’t bother me much. I am fairly removed from my heritage (They died young, so I barely remember one and the other died before I was born) and though I would like to learn more, I have just been busy living life I suppose! 

I am writing a multi-cultural fantasy. My main character’s love interest is Japanese… if a character can be Japanese when it’s a world without Japan, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I feel that Asian men never get the lead in books and film and it frustrates me that women seem to deem them ‘unsexy’ in hetero romances. There are some seriously hot Asian men out there!

However, I have suddenly started to wonder if there are any particular things I should avoid so that it doesn’t seem I am fetishizing them. I know they are often fetishized in gay romances, though, so do you have tips on things to avoid? Am I over thinking this? 

I feel like, even though I am a part of this people group, I am on the outside looking in.

Thanks!

Basics

Quick note: yes, a character can be coded Japanese in a world w/o Earth cultures; the word you’re looking for is coding :) 

It is a good question, and I’m surprised that there’s nothing on the oversexualization of East Asian men on here, because while the dominant media trope is de-sexualization, the opposite totally happens. Some of the stuff about physical features that we’ve covered on this blog (even if it centers around East Asian women) counts, so that’s a good starting point for research, if you haven’t already done this. Bad eye descriptions, mentions of “yellow fever,” all that stuff that you already shouldn’t do. Make your MC describe the love interest’s attractiveness in terms of features that aren’t fetishized or narrowly focused on. 

East Asian Man Fetish in history, modern media

You may be surprised, but there was a brief history of fetishizing East Asian men in the silent era of Hollywood. When Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa took to the stage in the 1910s and 20s, white women went nuts over his “brooding” persona and the taboo appeal of the interracial romances he was cast into. While he became less of a sex symbol and more of a villain in the 40s (you can thank WWII for that), throughout his career he was casted to perpetuate an exotic, dangerous image (something he personally despised and actively spoke out against). The idea of the Japanese bad boy is no longer pop culturally relevant, but it’s something to keep in the back of your mind. 

In terms of modern media, just avoid the kind of garbage that happens in Eleanor and Park, if you’re looking for a what-not-to-do. Don’t do things like comparing your character (either in the narrative or in dialogue) to other East Asian icons like Bruce Lee when they look nothing alike. Physical comparisons tend to be iffy for East Asians specifically because of “you all look alike,” which is why I would also discourage even accurate comparisons. 

Fetishization and K-Pop

The newest threat to East Asian men when it comes to fetishization is K-pop. Now, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit of a (casual) stan myself, but fanbases for idols can be very, very gross. You’re right about fetishization in gay media, which applies here with the dizzying amount of real life shipping (*GAK*) that many fans partake in. It’s essentially the evolved form of “yaoi fangirl” media that makes assumptions about the sexuality of male idols and turns the stereotype of emasculation into its own form of fetishization. This negatively affects the real-life experiences of queer Asian men, especially those who adopt more feminine gender presentation, gender performance, or hobbies. To say nothing of the idols themselves, most of whom I’m sure are very straight. 

Takeaway

What we can take away from this is that the fetishization of East Asian men is often founded on existing stereotypes. It takes a thorough understanding of the racist depictions of East Asians in media to unpack the ways in which they intersect with de-sexualization and hyper-sexualization. 

~Mod Rina

Asian asian men Japanese Japanese men East Asian hypersexualization Othering fetishization objectification stereotypes description East Asian stereotypes Japanese stereotypes asks

quicklywingedphantom-deactivate asked:

I have two Black female characters. One is asexual and in a romantic relationship, and I read on your blog that this is okay and not desexualizing. However, the other one is more of a stereotypical nerd and isn't really that interested in sex, partly because she's still a teenager. Is it problematic to have all the Black female characters be nonsexual ? I could change the nerdy one's personality because her character isn't very developed yet, I'm just worried that I might be desexualizing them.

Black Women and Teens: Desexualization 

Since when are nerdy kids never sexual? Especially teenagers! 

We wouldn’t think her being nerdy is a good reason for a lack of interest in sex or sexual activities. How you’ve constructed situations where both Black women happen to be nonsexual does feel off, to us, and leans into desexualization. The asexual romantic relationship is perfectly fine, but using nerdiness as a reason for lack of interest in sex is misguided and comes off as a forced reason for non-sexuality in any of the Black women. Teenagers are typically sexual beings as well. Every individual is different, but citing that as a reason for lack of sexuality is off-putting as well.

We would say reevaluate your reasons for the nerdy character to be non-sexual. No need to be over the top and create a hypersexual Black woman in turn, but please don’t erase the sexuality of Black women in your story.

~Mods Colette and Alice

quicklywingedphantom Black Black women Sexuality hypersexualization desexualization asexuality sex

a-poet-like-her-deactivated2018 asked:

Hello! I'm writing a piece in which my main character grows up in a sisterhood of sex workers in a fantasy world. Many of the leaders of this group are WoC - two black women and one white woman run the High Council. It is understood that the sisterhood is optional and anyone can leave at any point. How do I avoid hypersexualizing my characters and make it clear that it is their choice to take in other women to the sisterhood, and to perform the work they do? Thank you, you run a fabulous blog!

Avoiding Hypersexualization with Sex Workers

How would you write a union with optional membership?

Seriously, that’s basically the bottom line. Sex work is a job like any other, primarily focused on sales, and if you equate being a sex worker with anything other than “a job”, you’re going to do it disservice. Bartending involves similar skills (sales, flirting, smiles, smalltalk, putting on a show, listening to customers’ life stories— they’re even tipped in ones for doing fancy tricks), so if you approach it from a “they are sales oriented customer service based individual” perspective, you’ll be worlds ahead.

If you’ve got the idea that sex work is for people with a high sexual appetite, that attracts a Certain Kind of person, then you’re going to have hypersexualization issues. Sex workers during a long session are often thinking about their next cigarette break, when they can have food, and/or the discomfort of, say, grinding on jeans when you’re giving a lapdance. It’s boring with rewarding moments.

Do your research into sex workers before tackling this. I’ve written a post on writing strippers of colour you can start with.

~ Mod Lesya

Black Black women women of color sex workers hypersexualization asks
fucknofetishization

Asian women might be the flavor du jour, but the construct of the sexualized Asian female has been centuries in the making.

“There’s been a very long history and tradi­tion in Europe of a kind of fascination with and terror of the Eastern ‘Other,’” says Kim Brandt, associate professor of Japanese history and au­thor of Kingdom of Beauty: Mingei and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan and the forth com­ing Japan’s Cultural Miracle: Rethinking the Rise of a World Power, 1945-3965. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Western male fetishized the veiled Middle Eastern woman. One need only watch The Thief of Baghdad (1924) to catch a glimpse of some of these perceptions at work. In the 1840s, following the end of the First Opium War, the treaty port cities in China, Japan, and Korea were the site of a feeding frenzy for the United States and other Western powers—all desiring a piece of the profitable trade-route action. This led to a rise in the Western bour­geois desire for Oriental art and collectibles: decorative fans, postcards (more often than not bearing sexualized images of geishas), and other bric-a-brac she so chose). Still, the geisha became a highly sexualized image for the Western male. “The East Asian female in native dress,” Brandt says, “was viewed as a decorative object but also a sexual object.”

At its core, to fetishize something—or someone—is to objectify it to the point that it becomes divorced from the person herself. And it’s easy to see how the fetishization of Asian women developed. Valerie Steele, in her book Fetish: Fashion, Sex, and Power, turns to 19th-century sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing for an early working definition of fetishism: “The association of lust with the idea of certain portions of the female person, or with certain articles of female attire.” According to Krafft-Ebing, “in pathological eroticism the fetish itself (rather than the person associated with it) becomes the exclusive object of sexual desire.” There is an inherent deconstruction at work in this definition of the fetish, one that breaks down the actual female body. Steele posits that some degree of fetishization is the norm for men (but not for women); to indulge the old adage “divide and conquer,” one read­ing of fetishization could be the male attempt to conquer the foreign female body.

French writer Pierre Loti’s wildly popular 1887 novel, Madame Chrysantheme, largely cemented Western perceptions of Japan and, in turn, of Japanese women. The book is a semi autobiographical tale of a naval officer who travels to Nagasaki and takes a temporary wife—a woman who is painted as a plaything, another piece of Oriental artifact to be acquired. The wife he desires? A “little, creamy-skinned woman with black hair and cat’s eyes. She must be pretty and not much bigger than a doll.” The novel is peppered with details of “slim,” “graceful,” “dainty” “little women”with “delicate hands, miniature feet” and “natural skin of deep yellow,” who are the “exact types of the figures painted on vases.” In one scene the narrator describes how the local women “grovel before me on the floor, placing all this plaything of a meal at my feet.”What we see emerging from Loti’s text are continual images of tiny, doll-like Japanese women no more human than, in Loti’s own words, “china ornaments.”

In The Chrysantheme Papers: The Pink Notebook ofMadame Chrysantheme and Other Documents of French Japonisme, Christopher Reed describes the unquestionable impact of Loti’s novel—translated into every major European language and reprinted over 200 times during the course of the author’s life alone—on the Western construction of the East Asian woman. Reed writes that while Madame Chrysantheme still evokes a nostalgic pleasure for its era in French literature, recent scholarship on it and Loti’s other popular novels—which include similar travel narratives of Western men taking on a native woman as lover from Turkey to Tahiti—“often assess them as tools of sexual and cultural exploitation.” Reed goes on to tell us that Loti today “is widely read as exemplifying what went wrong with Western approaches to the East.” Still, the image of miniature Asian dolls scuttling about with food trays was already set in motion.

Madame Chrysantheme is widely acknowledged as the source for Puccini’s famous opera, Madama Butterfly. The opera, which premiered in 1904, chronicles a similar story: Pinkerton, an American officer, travels to Japan and takes on a local wife during his sojourn, only to return to the West to legitimately marry a white American woman. Cio-Cio-San, the abandoned Japanese wife who has given up everything—her religion, her family, her son, and finally her own life—to be with Pinkerton, became a new archetype. Now the image of the Asian female— dainty, diminutive, doll-like—gets compounded with yet another feature: self-sacrifice. This specific narrative is so intertwined with the perception of Asian women that it was reworked with another Eastern locale in the 1989 musical Miss Saigon, set in Vietnam with the American war as a backdrop.

After an announcement of the 2014 London revival of Miss Saigon, presale tickets were reported to be $4.4 million on the first day, breaking box office records and proving that the narrative is not just still popular, but profitable as well. Loti’s and Puccini’s influence also found its way onto the pop charts; the band Weezer gave a direct nod to Madama Butterfly in their album Pinkerton (1996). Take, for instance, the lyrics to the song “Across the Sea,” dedicated to an 18-year- old Japanese girl: “I wonder what clothes you wear to school/ I wonder how you decorate your room/ 1 wonder how you touch yourself/ And curse myself for being across the sea.”

Hollywood’s Golden Age gave rise to another archetype of the sexualized Asian female: the dragon lady. Unlike her “butterfly” counterpart, the dragon lady was a fierce Asian woman who wielded power—more often than not of a sexual nature—to the detriment of the men around her. This vampy femme fatale was first popularized by the Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, who, as the only high-profile Asian American actress of that era, “fascinated European and white American men at the time,” says Elaine H. Kim, professor of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley and writer and director of the short film Slaying the Dragon Reloaded: Asian Women in Hollywood and Beyond. The character was an exotic (read: dangerous) seductress, and Wong’s dragon-lady status was epitomized in her role as Fu Manchu’s daughter in Daughter of the Dragon (1931). Yet the characters Wong played always met the same tragic end; in many ways, dragon-lady roles were merely a racier rehash of Loti and Puccini’s quivering butterflies.

But perhaps the biggest factor sealing the image of the sexualized Asian female as we know it in the United States was the U.S. military presence in Asia, beginning in World War II and continuing through the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Military camp towns cropped up around the U.S. bases, and a local industry—namely “juicy bars” and brothels-—was created with the sole purpose of servicing U.S. soldiers. With the universal draft, American men who may not have held preconceived ideas of Asian women were now shipped to Asia, where they would be confronted with local women working in the sex industry. Stanley Kubrick’s film Pull Metal Jacket (1987), about American gis in the Vietnam War, made famous the following quote, uttered in broken English by a Vietnamese female prostitute: “Me so horny. Me love you long time. Me sucky sucky.” Mixed in 1989 as a sample in 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny,” the quote has taken on a pop-culture life of its own.

The American soldier-Asian female union began as one of commerce: money exchanged for sexual services. But historians layer a possible second reading to this narrative: colonization. The American Gl—representing a first world power with first world resources and privileges—colonizes the Asian female, who comes from a place of poverty, weakness, and everything else often associated with the “third world.” The Asian female sex worker could be read as another version of the “dragon lady”—a seductress capitalizing on the demand for sex.

The end of the Korean War in the early 1950s created a rise in overseas adoption. War orphans were airlifted from Korea and later Vietnam. The aftermath of the wars abroad brought about “an idea of benevolence toward Asian countries—of bringing women and children into our beautiful families,” Kim explains. “At that time, it was possible to think of bringing an Asian woman into your family, and not just someone you take in the back alley.”

A savior narrative began to take shape—Asian women became the native women who needed to be whisked away from their impoverished homeland. In the backdrop of the emergence of “blended” families came two films introducing the archetype of the “noble-hearted” Asian prostitute in need of salvation: Sayonara (1957) and The World of Suzie Wong (i960). The “native” woman gets her fairy-tale ending: The Western man marries her.

This salvation narrative is also exemplified in Graham Greene’s 1955 novel The Quiet American, set just before the dawn of the Vietnam War. When the titular American, a young, overly idealistic man named Alden Pyle, first lays eyes on Phuong, a young Vietnamese dancer who is already mistress to an older British journalist named Thomas Fowler, he says, “She seems fresh, like a flower.” Later, Pyle informs Fowler of his plans to steal Phuong away from him and take her back to America as his wife. “I want to keep her,” Pyle insists. “I want to protect her.” To which Fowler, who is already married to an English­ woman back home, retorts, “I don’t. She doesn’t need protection. I want her around, I want her in my bed.” Greene’s novel presents both forms of the romanticized Asian female: the native woman as “layover”wife during your foreign sojourn as well as the native woman you want to airlift from the wreckage and whisk back to the safety of American soil. As for Phuong, the object of de­ sire for these two Western men, she remains ever silent. For the majority of the novel Pyle and Fowler talk over her, filling in her desires and wishes with their own.

Surveying the history of representation in text and film, the Asian female has continually been exoticized and eroti­cized, an image that persists today. Last year Katy Perry’s performance of “Unconditionally” at the American Music Awards was both lauded and derided as a form of “yellow- face.” Perry appeared onstage in a Hollywood (read: sexier) version of a kimono, along with a troupe of similarly clad backup dancers. They spun their paper umbrellas on a set designed like a Japanese garden and sang about, well, unconditional love. Bloggers dubbed it Perry’s “geisha performance” and criticized it as perpetuating images of the groveling, self-sacrificial woman who has been abandoned.

Cases of extreme “Asiaphiles” abound—the subject of Debbie Lum’s recent documentary Seeking Asian Female is a self-described Asiaphile named Steven Bolstad, a 6o-year-old white male who finds his bride in China through an online service. When asked what drew him to his prospective wife, he simply responds, “She looks so Chinese!”but fails to elaborate on what he actually means by “Chinese.” The abhorrent and potentially harmful case of Michael Lohman, a Princeton graduate student who “admitted to pouring his urine and semen into the drinks of Asian women more than 50 times” in the graduate school cafeteria is an example of an Asian fetish gone too far.

But perhaps the Asian fetish is best captured in the song “Asian Girlz,” released last summer by a band called Day Above Ground—a song that quickly went viral with lyrics like the following: “I love your creamy yellow thighs/ Ooh your slanted eyes/ It’s the Year of the Dragon/ Ninja pussy I’m stabbin’/ Asian girl, you’re my Asian girl.”

Rivaling the lyrics was the video itself; it featured a skimpily dressed Asian woman who drinks a magic potion, shrinks down a troupe of (white) men, and locks them up
in a cage. The public may have decried the crassness of the song, but no one was asking for explanations for the references made in the lyrics—once again demonstrating how pervasive stereotypes of he sexualized Asian female have become in our culture. The band quickly released a statement explaining what they called their satirical tribute to “the always lovely Asian woman […] some of the most gorgeous women on the planet.”

In a recent New York Times piece, Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Mahler writes, “When you fetishize—as opposed to value—something, you wind up celebrating the idea of the thing rather than the thing itself.” In other words, the fetishized subject becomes the objectified. And when this fetishization applies to a whole group of people, like Asians, it translates to an obsession with the idea of the Asian woman, rather than the individual herself. UrbanDictionary.com, that shorthand source on all matters current and crude, cites the “primary” definition of the Asian fetish as a “strong attraction to Asians, most prevalent in [white] males. Although Asian girls have A’s in more than just grades: what they lack in boobs, they make up for in beauty. Usually exotic and petite, guys don’t necessarily feel superior but more masculine around them.”

The perception of sexualized Asian women was informed by a long tradition of the Western male writing and con­trolling that perception, leaving the women with no agency and no control over their own representation. Asian women in the media have been few and far between; what few there were often had no choice but to take on the archetypal roles of Asian females. But the landscape is changing. The earlier Asian female icons are joined by a growing rank of women working to shed the stifling images of self-sacrificial butterflies or the dragon-lady seductress. From Connie Chung to Julie Chen, from Margaret Cho to Sandra Oh to Saving Face director Alice Wu, we are seeing a rise of Asian American women taking control of their own representation. With heightened visibility and the increased diversity of voices in our culture, we hope to have more nuanced narratives about the lives of Asian women. It might be only a matter of time before these pervasive, confining archetypes of Asian women themselves become dated. Soon the Asian female may no longer be presented as wordless Phuongs, leaving the Western male to fill in the ellipses of her narrative.

Park, Patricia. “The Madame Butterfly Effect.” Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response To Pop Culture 64 (2014): 28-33. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Jan. 2015.   (via

durianpunk

)

hypersexualization History Racism Madame Butterfly othering dehumanization objectification Asian East Asian South Asian Japanese Chinese Korean Stereotypes Sexism dragon lady white savior long post colonialism fetishization asks Asian stereotypes Asian tropes East Asian stereotypes East Asian tropes Chinese stereotypes Korean stereotypes Japanese stereotypes South Asian tropes South Asian stereotypes
thewokewordsmith
realgarn

[“i want x to punch me in the face”], x =

  • [Candela
  • Garnet
  • Korra
  • Ahsoka / Sabine
  • Beyoncé
  • Gina Rodriguez
  • my Black + brown friends];

output = [boring; racist; old]

realgarn

In the 1850s, a white woman wrote an article on Sojourner Truth and referred to her “muscular,” “manly” body - how energy seemed to “flow” through her and how her body and labor could support and rally (white) women’s rights movements.

White men and women in colonial times considered brown women - e.g. in India - as inhumanly strong and created entire aesthetics of frailty, purity, and paleness to oppose the image of the laboring Black and brown woman. The concept of the British Woman was formulated directly through the acts of colonization and slavery. And the strengths assigned to especially Black women were done so in order to justify the labor placed on Black women slaves in the Americas and Caribbean and resist empathy.

The colonial - political, legal, medical, social - view of Black and brown/indigenous bodies as having strong physicality is centuries old and continues to be used in opposition to / as a goal for whiteness in modern (post-1900) medicine:

“The most significant proponent of that view was Georges Hébert, who, from the early years of the twentieth century, had asserted the superior physique of dark-skinned colonial subjects whose lives had allegedly remained closer to a natural state. The problem with modern man was that he had lost the physical edge that a simpler, ‘primitive’ life, without the comforts of modernity, would have preserved. His advocacy of exercises such as walking, running, and jumping was founded on the conviction that the uncivilized specimen demonstrated ‘perfect and complete muscular development acquired without method.’”

Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France by Joan Tumblety

White wlw have a history of taking specifically Black lesbian + other wlwoc terminology, dance, and style while rejecting credit and their presence in lbpq spaces. White wlw prey on and sexualize us in specific ways, fetishizing the violence that we experience as woc and mapping that on our bodies - making us out to be violent and destructive while using old colonial tactics of dehumanization in a way they think will flatter us into submission. Our expression of gender and sexuality is always violent and frightening and alien, and in ways that have historically been tied to transmisogyny in the above examples. 

tldr: boring

themyscira-scrolls

Reasons why I will avoid the shit out of white people who try and corral Black women into over-masculine, violent, and sexually “dominant” roles in their sick ass fantasies.

sourcedumal

Ok, but remember when everyone came for me when I said I wanted black women to be described in terms of care?

This shit right here…

violence racism Black Black Women Hypersexualization Strong Black Woman Tropes slavery fetishization othering asks Black stereotypes Black women stereotypes microaggressions Black tropes

smiling-dissidence-deactivated2 asked:

I have a backstory w/ a Latino guy (~18) who runs away from a stifling institution b/c he found mutual love in a Black woman (same age) who lives Outside, and they have (an impt.) child. The initial idea was that he got her pregnant accidentally, but took the opportunity to run away and start over with this new family. I've been doing lots of reading on what to avoid but am wondering specifically abt young parents and avoiding possible implications that she tempted him? Thanks for all the help!

Love Found Outside Strict Institution, Dispelling Temptress Implications

This seems to be running on the assumption that women who make men leave stifling institutions always lure them and it’s just going to get worse because she’s Black, so you’re worried there needs to be extra work done in order to really establish “nope that’s not what happened!” when those types of forced characterizations make it worse.

You can’t control all people’s opinions. There will be individuals who will always feel anybody who leaves a strict institution is lured. Just make her a character and don’t worry what other people think.

Cults/high maintenance groups (The latter is a better description of what cults actually, y'know, do— they require a high level of commitment to maintain) looove twisting things around to make it look like nobody could possibly leave of their own will, and they were instead “tempted”. If that’s the main thing that’s coming up in your research, I would suggest broadening research to out of group sources. Places like recoveringagency.com are written for survivors, by survivors.

It’s actually really bloody common for people to leave after finding (often unconditional) love. I had also destroyed my relationships twice thanks to cult rules so I was starting to go “either I end up isolated, or I leave.”

Cults/sniffling institutions/high maintenance groups try to convince members that whatever love they get is based on how “good” they are, and it’s very conditional. When people start to experience unconditional love on the “outside”, they realize how twisted the conditional love on the “inside” is, and want better. It’s why “outside” contact is so regulated in these groups.

There is absolutely no way to avoid temptress implications. When the main reason people leave is love, and realizing love doesn’t have to be like the “inside” says it is, and when the “inside” spreads fear of temptation so strongly, then people are going to see it that nobody would ever leave unless there was an outside force that was so alluring it was irresistible (which is further reinforced by “if you don’t control yourself on the outside, you’ll fall from grace”)

With how high maintenance groups hold a monopoly on thought, people will see her as a temptress. Always. Just make her a character and show the latino guy holding his own agency, and the survivors will see it for what it is.

-WWC Mod, a cult survivor who by most metrics appears lured but left on my own will.

relationships romance cult temptress Black Black woman hypersexualization feminism smiling-dissidence Latino Asks

estessister asked:

I have a question about black female stereotypes. In my fantasy novel, one of my main characters is the daughter of a Greek-equivalent man and a black woman, who weren't married, the father was married to another woman. both are absent from her life (mother is dead, father was exiled for adultery). My question is, is it problematic that this character's father cheated on his wife with a black woman? Is that playing into any stereotypes?

Black Woman Mistress

It does play into stereotypes. Often Black women are placed in the category of the other woman either by being “homewrecker”/temptresses or just not being good enough for a man to actually wed, instead to remain the dirty little secret. 

It’d be nice to see us play roles as loved and respected wives and lovers, not just mistresses. 

~Mod Colette

persephonespluto black black women hypersexualization stereotypes Black stereotypes Black tropes jezebel asks

Black Biracial Daughter of Aphrodite, Hypersexualization, and Colorism

Hi! I’ve just gone through your mixed-race tag and checked your FAQ, so I hope this isn’t the wrong place to ask this question. I’m writing a short piece set in the Percy Jackson universe (I don’t know if you’re familiar) and my main character Eleni is a daughter of Aphrodite. Her dad is African American, of Kenyan descent, and as her mom is a literal goddess, Eleni grew up exclusively in her dad’s family. In the first part of the story, I write:

I always wished I looked more like my dad. I have his tight, wiry curls and almond-shaped eyes, but the colors are all wrong – golden-brown hair, bronze eyes, tawny skin. My father doesn’t understand why I hate it, but whenever we have family over, I feel like the Bat signal.

I’ve been struggling mostly with the last sentence (and the description of her hair) because I wanted to express that she feels very light-skinned in comparison to her family and she hates how she sticks out, but I’m really scared it’s going to sound racist (like a “light in the darkness” vibe which sounds horrible to me). Does the current paragraph sound okay?

I’m also a little worried about hypersexualization. She’s a daughter of Aphrodite, beauty and attractiveness are a part of the deal, and I made her mixed-race specifically because it feels wrong to have all the pretty Aphrodite girls be white, but does this mean I’m hypersexualizing her or playing into the mixed-race = sexy trope? The story actually centers around her trying to make people see that she’s more than just pretty (she’s smart and resourceful and wants to help people fight monsters), so I think I’m avoiding it, but I’m white and would really appreciate some advice. Thanks! 

Disclaimer: this is answered from a western point of view and from my own experience as a Black biracial person (Black/white) growing up amongst white relatives and community. Please treat it as such and listen to what other Black biracial people have to say because our experiences are many and differ a lot from person to person. 

Hey there! First of all, good job checking out our tags and FAQ! This sounds interesting, but also might turn out to be a bit more complicated than first expected. 

Descriptions

So, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the hair description, but the bat signal part does sound pretty weird to me. Also, how she describes her skin—“the colors are all wrong”–sounds very harsh. It’s also a bit of a contrast with the descriptors you used (golden, bronze, tawny) which are neutral or even positive, which is a bit of a contrast with her negative opinion. If she really does dislike her skin color, she’d use more negative words. With these descriptors it seems like she hates her brown skin, instead of disliking that she is lighter skinned. 

Hypersexualization and fetishization

As for the hypersexualization, having a sexy mixed race character does not automatically mean you are oversexualizing them and making them into a fetish. Eleni can be attractive, sexy and anything she wants to be, as long as you give her agency, properly develop her, write her respectfully and don’t ascribe her these traits because of her skin color. Also, she can be gorgeous and attractive without dripping in sex-appeal. Even if people’s gazes towards her are tainted by racist ideals and opinions, make it very clear in your writing that it’s a reflection of them, and not Eleni.

You know what also helps? Having other siblings from her mother who are not white. Describing other Black and brown skinned characters as beautiful and attractive. Staying away from food descriptors and other weird and fetishizing imagery. Don’t describe them like a voyeur.

My personal thoughts on the narrative

Having said that, I can’t help but feel like this is more of an idea that people outside the community have, that the ostracizing and intolerance many darker skinned people experience growing up in lighter skinned families and communities is the same when the places are swapped (talking from a western point of view, and I guess mostly with Black and white people since that is what I’m familiar with). Everyone who I know who has ever come up with this idea had been white, so I’d really like to have some input from Black biracial people having grown up in a similar situation as your Eleni to share their thoughts on this. 

I really don’t want to erase anyone’s experiences and stories, but I also want a positive change in representation which does not give people the wrong idea about Black biracial narratives. An appropriate beta-reader is also highly recommended for you.

In all honesty, despite having grown up in a similar situation, my input feels misplaced because Eleni’s is a race swap of mine. I grew up with my older siblings amongst a white family. I have shared many of Eleni’s feelings. You don’t mention her family’s demeanor and treatment towards her, but I know mine (white side of the family) had an active role in how I felt about my skin color, as well as my direct circles and community. I don’t know about Eleni’s family and community, but in my experience Black people have always been very positive about my looks and skin color. My Black family members have never rejected me based on my lighter skin. Part of this is of course in part due to colorism.

So, I don’t want to say that Eleni can’t feel the way she does. I feel like the context of her feelings would be pretty complex due to colorism, racism, European beauty standards, hypersexualization, fetishization, etc. Really think about how this impacts her. Realize that also, people can have different ways of dealing with these. It can be internalized (happens more often than you might think, sadly enough), some bolster their pride and seem community, while other withdraw. As many possibilities as there are people. She can also be self-conscious and worry about her skin color despite all the compliments she gets (I wish this weren’t true). If so, she’ll probably feel out of place outside her own family situations (not necessarily always).

But, the thing is, I’d rather read such a narrative from someone who’s experienced it themself. Think about why you chose for this narrative and if hers would be a positive representation for Black mixed race girls. There are many stories written about the possible struggles of being mixed race and many tend to be pretty dehumanizing (metaphors with mixed-species), extreme and negative (mixed race people are demonized) or weirdly fetishistic or… idk.. the “a mixed race world solves everything” crap. Think about how yours would be different and how you want it to be different or make a difference amongst a shelf full of them.

Okay, so this has gotten way too long, so I’m going to end with, please don’t think you can’t write your Eleni as a Black biracial daughter of Aphrodite. It made me happy to hear about her, but please think about allowing her narrative to be a positive representation.

~ Mod Alice

Writing question submission mixed race biracial black colorism hypersexualization representation description asks
chescaleigh
chescaleigh

3 Black Female Stereotypes that Need to Die | MTV Decoded

Every notice how black women in media tend to looped into a few basic stereotypes? Like get portrayed as the sassy friend who has an instant comeback for everything, or the over-sexualized woman who wants it all the time, or the helpful black maid. Well these stereotypes don’t come from nowhere. And on this episode of Decoded where they come from and explain why they need to be buried good and deep. 

black black women characters stereotypes mammy Jezebel angry black woman sassy black woman black best friend black history history american history hypersexualization desexualization rape rape mention tw videos Black stereotypes Black tropes misogynoir
yestweetybird

The Criminal Unrapeability of Black Women

ablackwomansurvivingrape

image

By KALI NICOLE GROSS

Black womanhood = criminal perversion. This equation leapt to mind in wake of allegations of harassment claimed by Daniele Watts, a Black actress handcuffed and detained in Los Angeles earlier this month after a public display of affection with her White boyfriend. Though questions have swirled about what actually took place, that Watts was made to feel that officers though the couple was actually a prostitute and client is not surprising. 

More recently, a group of Black women enjoying an evening at New York’s swank Standard Hotel were harassed by security, who told them bluntly that he believed they were soliciting sex work.

To some extent, these incidents highlight an evolutionary conflict: Black women are subjected to dated stereotypes and clash with regulatory agencies unable to accept otherwise. 

In the days of old, Black sexual perversions went like this: Black men were all rapists, and Black women were all ‘whores.’ Our criminal justice system played a fundamental role in the sexual objectification of Black women. It decriminalized sexual assault against them, both during enslavement and in practice long after. Instead of punishing their attackers, society engaged in victim-blaming on a massive scale. Then as now, Black women were supposedly hypersexual to the point that they were always sexually available–they were essentially unrapeable. They could not be victims, girlfriends or wives, and certainly not ‘true’ women.  Their bodies belonged to whomever wanted to violate them, despite persistent messaging that Black women were also inherently undesireable. Consider:

-Stereotypes about Black women being prostitutes were so common in the late 19th century that some found ways to use this to their advantage. Black “badger thieves,” as they were called, pretended to be streetwalkers only to rob wannabe customers.

-In places like 1920’s Harlem, as historian Cheryl Hicks points out, innocent Black women standing in front of their buildings or walking home from work would be rounded up and arrested during prostitution sweeps.

-At the same time that Black women have been denied legal protection, they have been among the most criminalized. Black women’s incarceration for petty theft and substance abuse helped make them the most disproportionately, overrepresented group in prison.  

-Black women are also among the most victimized.  Some 40 percent of Black girls have been sexually coerced before reaching adulthood.

Myths of promiscuity have often left Black women vulnerable to sexual assault while masking their victimization. Historically, law enforcement officers and prison guards in particular have taken full advantage. Records indicate whether Black women were arrested in holding cells or locked in solitary units in female wards or laboring on chain gangs, guards and other male inmates sexually abused them.

Today, Black female prisoners face an increased likelihood of sexual assault by inmates as well as violation by guards during body searches.  The 16 felony charges of sexual assault by an accused Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw is one of the more disturbing cases of police violence against Black women. That the accused remains out on bail shows that, save for the local chapter of the NAACP, a petition on Change.org, and segments on Melissa Harris-Perry, few seem worried about the ongoing threat to Black women’s safety as well as the safety of the victims, many of whom were poor women allegedly targeted because the legal system would be unlikely to believe them.

Troubling, too, is the backlash that Watts faces: Audio and video footage surfaced revealing she was fully clothed, sitting on her boyfriend’s lap in his car and that she refused to show ID.  Since she was getting frisky with her man, how dare she not want to dignify specious prostitution allegations?   The nerve: a Black woman not wanting a White police officer, or any officer really, to have her name and address when she hasn’t committed a crime! There’s also now collective denial about the fact that if both she and her man were White in L.A. doing the same thing, no one would likely have batted an eye. The cops probably would have been attending to more pressing matters, which begs the question: Has that supposed 911 call surfaced?  Isn’t this what the officer said he was following up on?  

Either way, the reality is there is very little precedent for Black women to safely engage in sexual play or to be sexually desirable, let alone make out with White men in fancy cars. Ms. Watts had to the audacity to act as if she were a woman with that kind of space, almost like she were an actual citizen.  

For a brief moment, it seemed like the rest of the country thought she was, too.  

Hypersexualization Desexualization Racism Black history Discrimination intersectional feminism black women rape rape tw sexual assault tw reblog