Fatal Fantasies: How Fetishization Endangers Asian Women

Content warning: This piece contains references to explicit content, including sex and pornography. 

I have grown up under the shadow of what America believes Asian women to be.

I first noticed it in the eyes of my classmates — glazed over by blue light from their devices, they saw in me the animated caricatures they ogled over online. Over time, these peers grew up into adults who possessed self-proclaimed Asian fetishes, incapable of conceptualizing Asian women as anything other than objects of desire.

Once, at a dinner with my mother, I heard a woman eloquently articulate the issue at hand.

“Not all men like Asian women, but all creepy ones do,” the woman said. 

Although the insulting comment was thick with ignorance, it didn’t come from nowhere. The fetishization of Asian women in American media has been a prevalent issue for years and has only been amplified by the internet, specifically by the pornography industry. 

Pornhub, a major online pornography platform, released in their 2023 Year in Review its most searched for term last year was “hentai,” an animated pornographic genre of Japanese origin somewhat notorious for its predatory, and even pedophilic nature. 

“Asian,” “Japanese” and “Korean” were also among the most widely-searched terms.

The same year, Pornhub averaged an astonishing 100 million visits per day. The fact is, pornography is being consumed in massive amounts — especially that which fetishizes Asian women, perpetuating narratives that ultimately cause real life harm. 

The porn industry has cultivated content championing a fictionalized version of Asian women who exist purely for the pleasure of men. We’re portrayed as lotus blossoms — docile, submissive and easy to hurt. 

This depraved, and pervasive characterization has been internalized by viewers of pornographic materials, rendering them unable to distinguish real human beings from personas and inclining them to take out their sexual frustrations on innocent people.

In 2021, a white man shot eight people at three spas near Atlanta, according to the New York Times. Six of the victims were Asian women. During interrogation, the man admitted to having a “sexual addiction” and claimed his actions were an effort to get rid of his “temptations.” 

This event is neither isolated nor surprising. Whether it be a killing spree or an off-putting comment, instances of violence and aggression against Asian women with sex-based motives are more common than is discussed.

For Asian women, however, this is an unavoidable and brutal reality. 

In general, porn has received consistent criticism for its addictive nature and for the negative impacts it has on its viewers’ psyches. 

A 2019 study found 11% of men in the U.S. reported themselves as being addicted to porn, according to the National Library of Medicine. 

Beyond fetishizing individuals based on race, pornography has normalized sexual abuse and misconduct. This is due partially to audience addiction. When the dopamine rush of regular porn wears off with repeated viewing, users tend to seek out less conventional and more abusive genres. 

With audiences getting younger as internet access expands and becomes less restricted, pornography’s influence only grows. 

Seemingly omnipresent pornographic content both establishes and confirms the notion Asian women are purely objects of desire, dehumanizing them in the viewer’s eyes. Our culture is a beautiful one — porn strips us of it. 

As long as there is continued production of, and engagement with pornographic materials, harm will continue to fall on the Asian-American community. The first step in severing this cycle is to abandon pornography completely. As corrupted as the industry is, stimulating it only worsens the problem. 

It is now time, long overdue, for the lotus blossom to be laid to rest so the real Asian women of America may bloom.