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"They're All So Beautiful", a documentary on race and dating


Yagathai

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I have to admit that I have some missed a couple elements of this whole thing despite this being a recurring theme on the board.

One is that, if I'm reading you correctly (please correct me if I'm in error), that this is not a purely male towards female phenomenon.

...Or was the video cherrypicking? I'm not suggesting that it's cherrypicking...or a moment.

I get objectified fairly often by women. (generally by ones that really like tall guys) Unless you were more specifically admitting surprise that Asian men might be found attractive by someone. Or something else entirely? And either way, is 'cherry picking' the best phrase for describing a video about unrealistically idealized Japanese womanhood?

This hits the nail on the head, I guess.

I fail to see the epistemological or moral difference between “Asian women are smart and hot” and “guys with certain types of facial hair are total creepers.” More generally, the whole assumption underlying the fake moral outrage over Yellow Fever is in itself an example of collectivism pure and simple. Othering.

Not that I can get especially riled up about collectivism. Its part of human psychology and here to stay. But at least stop stereotyping the stereotypers; it’s intellectually inconsistent. (Also, vapid and facile.)

+1. There are an awful lot of attempts to enforce conformity on the Board. Though in this case, for the cause discussed, I'm free from sin. (Probably still guilty by association with my other unorthodoxies in the minds of many though.)

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So...basically if I do not agree with your view on a particular type of facial hair or clothing it's okay that I then be stereotyped as creepy? Sure I chose to wear them, but I didn't chose to be considered creepy. But of course, I should bend to your views on it based on absolutely no evidence and more than likely backwards reasoning to prove an intuition already taken as fact and cut it or suffer the consequences. See the example about tramp stamps and revealing clothing above.

I'm not surprised by this view, we had a thread on it before, I'm just surprised that anyone would state it outright.

Well, my instinct is to agree though I'm finding it hard to pin down why.

That said, this is a slippery slope for personal responsibility. Is it okay to make fun of skinny girls because they're better represented in the media and therefore "stronger"? Regardless of the cultural context, you are still choosing to do something to someone that you don't want done to you and the reasoning is exactly the same. Whatever else is happening, you are choosing to do something that you would have found morally questionable in other situations.In a practical sense it may not require any sort of concerted push to correct but we're not always being practical

As Alcibiades mentioned, growing facial hair is a choice and is an extension of your personality, the same as clothes or makeup or accessories are. Being a certain race or ethnicity is not a choice. Making a judgment based on an individual's choice is less morally imperious than making a judgment because of the way someone was born. That's the difference: men of all ethnicities with mustaches would be less attractive to me as a romantic partner, whereas women who are not Asian would not be attractive because they are not Asian.

Facial hair on its own is just facial hair. I reserve judgment unless egregious behavior is involved. Which it is, in the video for They're All So Beautiful. All the men being interviewed already have professed Yellow Fever. It's highly uncomfortable to see them and listen to them talk about it.

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There is a difference between finding a person unattractive because he has facial hair and assigning him a negative personality trait because of said facial hair (even if its just the cherry on top). No one is asking you to find men attractive because they have facial hair. If someone is creepy, then they are creepy for reasons unrelated to their grooming habits.

The behavior of the men in question already leads me to assign them negative personality traits. It's already bad to start with. The negativity is made even worse by a feature I dislike. It's not like the absence of facial hair makes it less bad. We're still talking about men with Asian fetish solely, right? Far be it for me to say that mustaches are gross full stop.

I get objectified fairly often by women. (generally by ones that really like tall guys) Unless you were more specifically admitting surprise that Asian men might be found attractive by someone. Or something else entirely? And either way, is 'cherry picking' the best phrase for describing a video about unrealistically idealized Japanese womanhood?

+1. There are an awful lot of attempts to enforce conformity on the Board. Though in this case, for the cause discussed, I'm free from sin. (Probably still guilty by association with my other unorthodoxies in the minds of many though.)

We haven't even entered into the realm of women with Yellow Fever, which is probably going to be addressed slightly in the next video in the series. Suffice it to say that women are just as guilty as men. Their expectations or desires are just as wacky, but in different ways.

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This conversation over 'staches just seems like derailment. But yes, if we must acknowledge it, judging people on facial hair is bad. Done.

That said, I don't see a problem in liking a particular racial or ethnic category's appearance. I'm assuming yellow fever is a bit more like a fetish though, which does enter into creeper territory though I can see some grey area here.

I do get the issue with assumptions about personality, in this case Asian women being "docile" or "knowing a woman's place" or all the other creepy shit I've heard.

The biggest problem I see is indeed stereotypes about personality. Otherwise it just seems like an exaggerated form of what we all see, people liking blondes, buxom women and the like. (That exaggeration may itself be problematic.)

I doubt that it'd feel like that for the person though. How would you know that someone just likes you because you're slender or because you're supposedly docile? For that matter, how can someone prove that that is the case? They might not know it but they have those things in their subconscious or, as mentioned before, why don't they like similarly svelte white women? It's not like Asians have that department on lock.

As Alcibiades mentioned, growing facial hair is a choice and is an extension of your personality, the same as clothes or makeup or accessories are.

Except you know nothing about my personality just as I know nothing about the personality of the woman in a short skirt.It's very,very likely that you're stereotyping based on a previously held belief, also very likely informed by media portrayals.

Being a certain race or ethnicity is not a choice. Making a judgment based on an individual's choice is less morally imperious than making a judgment because of the way someone was born.

Still probably factually wrong and still stereotyping. If stereotyping is wrong then we shouldn't do it no? Is the defining line here that you can emotionally bully me into changing my facial hair? Is that the practical concern or the driving moral one? OR is the concern a greater distance between assumption and fact? Stereotyping people who wear skinny jeans in LA vs. all of Asia?

We can argue about which is more harmful but personally, if you find something wrong in one case you probably shouldn't do it in another case no? Just saying that the two are not the same is expedient in political struggles because it prevents what is happening now , but I don't see how it lets one off morally.

Facial hair on its own is just facial hair. I reserve judgment unless egregious behavior is involved. Which it is, in the video for They're All So Beautiful. All the men being interviewed already have professed Yellow Fever. It's highly uncomfortable to see them and listen to them talk about it.

Fair enough.

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We all stereotype. Every single one of us. On its own, it isn't a bad thing. It helps us make quick sense of the world and informs us of how to act. Yeah, there is an Asian fetish stereotype. A lot of it has to do with behavior. In my personal experience, facial hair and overall grooming is also highly correlated with the Asian fetishist profile. I'm okay with using this profile to help me avoid people with whom I don't want to interact. Terra threw an estimate out there on the percentage of people who approach him who have some kind of Asian fetish - 70%. That's very high. I feel extremely bad for him. 50% isn't that much better.

I don't see this as hypocritical because I am using it to avoid people who would treat me as a means to fulfill their social, romantic, and sexual desires. It's very specific. They may be nice people. I really don't care. It's a survival tactic.

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Oh, wise non-Asian people, please tell us what is the right way of problematizing the exotification and objectification that Asians encounter in predominantly white cultures.

Seriously, if the best you can offer is that someone complaining about stereoptyping A is themselves committing stereotyping B, I think we can pack up and call it a day.

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So...basically if I do not agree with your view on a particular type of facial hair or clothing it's okay that I then be stereotyped as creepy? Sure I chose to wear them, but I didn't chose to be considered creepy. But of course, I should bend to your views on it based on absolutely no evidence and more than likely backwards reasoning to prove an intuition already taken as fact and cut it or suffer the consequences. See the example about tramp stamps and revealing clothing above.

Well, I don't want to get too thick in the weeds on the slut shaming example because I don't know the issue that well, but my understanding is that the real issue with revealing women's clothing is when some kind of sexual assault happens. There's an impulse then to say the crime was lesser because she was asking for it. No one is getting assaulted because of his stache; she'd just prefer not to associate with you stache wearer.

If there's a categorical rule against judging people based on how they present themselves, I'm pretty sure we're all guilty. I know I judged the hell out of the person I saw wearing crocs to work last week. I don't really want to associate with that person personally or professionally, because I've already judged how seriously they take themselves.

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Creepy facial hair.

That's ok. All the white fetishists who set off your alarm you can send to me. I like them with facial hair. One person's creepy fetishist is another person's hot-enough-to-fuck-so-I-don't-care-they're-a-fetishist fetishist. I may even play along and say "kawaii!" if that'll get them hard.

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Did the guy in the This American Life story have facial hair? Too bad it was on the radio, haha. ETA: Btw, I thought it was a great episode all around, not just the yellow fever part. I listened to the podcast on Monday. TAL has been hit or miss for me lately.

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Did the guy in the This American Life story have facial hair? Too bad it was on the radio, haha.

No facial here there. Just some very frightening ideas about what his partner should be like.

I think one of the creepiest parts of that segment (and I think it's in the documentary also) is when Steven tells the filmmaker, "You look so Chinese right now. You could not possibly look any more Chinese than you do right now." And the filmmaker is like, "What does that MEAN?"

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Well, I don't want to get too thick in the weeds on the slut shaming example because I don't know the issue that well, but my understanding is that the real issue with revealing women's clothing is when some kind of sexual assault happens. There's an impulse then to say the crime was lesser because she was asking for it. No one is getting assaulted because of his stache; she'd just prefer not to associate with you stache wearer.

So the concern is criminal harm? Fair enough.

If there's a categorical rule against judging people based on how they present themselves, I'm pretty sure we're all guilty. I know I judged the hell out of the person I saw wearing crocs to work last week. I don't really want to associate with that person personally or professionally, because I've already judged how seriously they take themselves.

I wonder if racists and fat-shamers would get the same leeway with the "everybody judges". defense...After all, no criminal harm...(I'm talking without job and sentencing issues)

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the fake moral outrage over Yellow Fever is in itself an example of collectivism pure and simple.

Wow. I am so fake moral outraged about all the times that I've been accosted by strangers wanting to know personal information about my race/nationality, my adoption situation (WTF), how long I've lived in America, or most relevant to the thread, first asking about my nationality and then asking something about my sexual preferences (which would have been inappropriate without the former). I have an American name, no accent, and dress in Western brand clothes - not that I'm saying it's ok to ask intrusive personal questions to someone with a typically Asian name and a thick accent - simply that there's absolutely nothing about me that suggests "foreigner" except my facial features, and I have never seen one of my American friends who happens to be white or black with a similarly generic American name and a similar lack of accent be approached in that way (although I understand that black women have to deal with people thinking they're entitled to touch her hair. Creepy people). I'm sure that it happens to some other Americans at some times, but I've lost count of how many times I've had to deal with it, although the last time was Sunday. And if I try to avoid the conversation, some of these people have become offended because my Asian appearance means that I OWE them an explanation.

I had pulled a muscle at the end of a road race once, and while I was trying to get assistance to the medical tent, the asshole volunteer was trying to "practice his Japanese" on me. I was begging him to please just tell me where the tent was in English, and he would not shut up with asking me if he was speaking Japanese correctly. Literally seconds after I came visibly limping over the line.

I am so fake moral outraged about the men who feel free to make Asian-related comments about my body or my preferences. All the times I've walked by some white men and they say "me so horny" as I pass.

And I am so fake moral outraged about the sexual assault that I experienced from the Asian fetishist who saw having an Asian girlfriend as something he deserved in order to act out something he'd seen in one of those animated porn things - something that involved female humiliation.

And I consider myself to be someone fortunate enough to have been relatively unaffected by racism in my life. (And I'm distinguishing these events from what one might call negatively focused racism).

Now someone is probably wanting to say - but lots of women (or people in general) have to deal with unwanted comments about their personal life or get cat calls or are in danger of sexual assault from people who think they're entitled to it. Or say, someone who wants to act out a humiliation scene without a woman's consent obviously has problems that go beyond obsession with Japan. And I don't disagree. But we get these racially motivated things on top of the rest.

Still probably factually wrong and still stereotyping. If stereotyping is wrong then we shouldn't do it no? Is the defining line here that you can emotionally bully me into changing my facial hair?

I'm not accusing or defending Mina here - I think it's unfair to stereotype someone by facial hair, but I accept her explanation that the men were already creepy and happened to have something that she doesn't find attractive.

The ability to change is a huge defining line to me - even though I think you shouldn't change if you don't want to. If there was something I could do to magically make people never see me as culturally different from other Americans again, I would. Now ideally, that would mean making people accept that an American can be any race, and just because that person isn't white doesn't mean they have another cultural/national background or speak other languages that they want to share with strangers asking personal questions. But you know what, I'd settle for just magically being able to make strangers not see me as Asian. Because I don't see myself that way in regards to culture, language, family, etc. I know that color-blind rhetoric is often bullshit, but being Asian honestly is nothing more than a physical appearance to me.

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Probably not completely relevant --

But I'd like to point out that biologically speaking shaving is more of a choice than letting whatever hair you have (anywhere on your body) grow naturally.

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Probably not completely relevant --

But I'd like to point out that biologically speaking shaving is more of a choice than letting whatever hair you have (anywhere on your body) grow naturally.

I did mention that, Ormond. Shaving, whether you do it or not, is a choice and an expression.

Ep, I would like to keep my Asianness as it's a huge part of who I am, but I would be okay with being accepted as American at face value.

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I have found myself on a number of occasions being really attracted to Asian women. I think the reason for this is because I am attracted to women. I am also really attracted to European women, American women, African women, Indian women, Persian women, Russian women, South American women, Middle Eastern women...ect...ect... ad infinitum.

As for personal features that I like, They have to be either short, tall, or in between. They have to have blonde, black, brunette, red, or funky color died hair (or be bald) and finally the only body type I am attracted to is living (if they are dead, that is a real turn off).

There is always one consistent with the women I have dated though. It is absolutely essential that they like me as well. I just can't stand going out with someone who hates me.

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