Crystal and I presented on sexual racism. We decided to hone in on two outlets of sexual racism, dating apps and the porn industry. We based our discussion points off of the readings that we were assigned that covered sexual racism in hookups on college campuses, sexual fields in gay hookup culture, and the idea of “screening” of white partners by partners who are POC to make sure that the white partner is racially aware of injustices against people of color.

We made an effort to bring the part of the reading that discussed that asian men and black women were least desirable while asian women and black men are fetishized. If we had more time to do the presentation, it would have been interesting to discuss how these specific stereotypes came to be. We did ask the question: where do sexual fetishes come from? But it would have been helpful to have both scientific evidence and historical evidence. In this reflection, I have chosen to look for some historical and biological evidence to help formulate an answer to this question.

I came across an article that discussed how the Asian female began to be fetishized in American culture. Much of the story covers how through opera and Hollywood, Asian females were portrayed as “ornaments” that were “tools of sexual and cultural exploitation” and supplemented the idea that all other cultures are “savages” and it is “daring” to “take on a native woman as a lover.” This idea reproduced itself over time, especially in the U.S. military presence in Asia and the opportunities it gave for American men to participate in the Asian sex industry. I am very curious as to how the fettish of the black man came to be. Unfortunately, in my very thoroughly conducted google search, the fetishizing of female black women was the only result that popped up. But luckily, we did not discuss this fetishization of black women – and we definitely should have. The fetishization of black women largely originated during the colonial era, where white slave owners would rape black slaves. Their justification of this action was that the women presented themselves as hyper-sexualized. Disgusting! Scientists at the time were fascinated by black bodies and even took molds of black womens’ genitalia most mortem. Black women are continually over-sexualized in the art world, depicting them as sexual beings for the pleasure of the white man. 

Somehow over the course of the semester, we failed to discuss the covert fetishization of black Bowdoin students. Men are fetishized for their supposedly “BBC” whereas the females are more covertly fetishized by white men who wan’t to “try a black woman out,” according to my conversations conducted for my research project on Bowdoin’s racialized hookup culture. 

After this discussion and now this reflection, I can’t help but feel helpless about this situation. Sociology has taught me to be observant in the inner workings of radicalization around me, but I have not learned how to better these problems. It seems almost too hopeful to believe that most of the sexual racism mentioned above could get less severe over my life time. People are very routed in their environments they grow up in and as long as white people continue to breed with other white people, some people will continue to see white people as the prizes of not only sex, but society. Thank you for this discussion and the amazing participation – I thoroughly enjoyed presenting on this topic because sexual fettishes bring in the question of racist notions vs. preference based on environment.