Japan's "Herbivorous Men"

[Curtis24]

At the age of 18, Mitsuhiro Matsushita already has a good idea of his ideal future. After he graduates from university a few years of work will be followed by marriage to an industrious wage earner. When children arrive it will be Mitsuhiro who stays at home looking after them, baking cakes and biscuits and living the traditional life of the Japanese housewife.

None of this would be noteworthy but for one thing. Mitsuhiro is not a conventionally minded Japanese woman, but a thoughtful, articulate and fashionably dressed young man. And far from being a marginal eccentric he is a member of a large and growing tribe of Japanese manhood that is attracting the fascinated and anxious attention of companies, academics and the mass media.

Two phrases have been coined to describe them: soshokukei danshi or “herbivorous males”, and Ojo-man – or “girly men”.

Definitions vary, but the new herbivores could be described as metrosexuals without the testosterone. Although most of them are not homosexual they have in common a disdain for the traditional accoutrements of Japanese manhood, and a taste for things formerly regarded as exclusively female. Girly men have no interest in fast cars, career success, designer labels and trophy women. Instead, they hold down humble jobs, cultivate women as friends rather than conquests and spend their free time shopping at small boutiques and pursuing in Japan what is regarded as a profoundly feminine pastime: eating cakes.

Sociologists worry about the effect on the shrinking population of a generation of men who are not interested in girls. Marketeers ponder how to sell to this new, unfamiliar demographic. Cultural commentators have produced volumes attempting to explain the phenomenon to the rest of Japan, with titles such as Love Study of Herbivores, The Men Who Wear Bras and the Women Who Don’t and Herbivorous Girly Men Are Changing Japan.

The author of the last work, Megumi Ushikubo, estimates that two thirds of men aged 20 to 34 have herbivorous tendencies. Her marketing agency advises Japanese companies on how to appeal to this new demographic — so different from the generation above who came to maturity during the “Bubble Economy” of the late Eighties and early Nineties when rising asset prices in Japan created a frenzy of conspicuous consumption.

“In the Bubble, what people valued in a car was speed and high specifications,” she says. “Herbivorous boys don’t have any interest in that. They want a car which is practical and which gives them the space to be themselves.”

The last few years have seen a range of products to cater to a broadening of tastes among Japanese men. Japanese brewers have introduced weaker beers as sales of conventional alcoholic beverages have declined. A company named WishRoom sells bras for men — designed with manly simplicity, free of lace and frills.

“In the Eighties and Ninetiess, people imagined that men should be men and women should be women,” says Shinya Yamaguchi, 23, a fashion designer. “It was all about brand goods, foreign cars and pretty girls. But now people realise they can live as they wish.”

This week, Mr Yamaguchi will launch his latest collection of skirts and lacy tops, some of them pink, and all aimed at men.

Not everyone regards the emergence of the girly men as completely positive. Masahiro Yamada, a professor of sociology at Tokyo’s Chuo University, said that it had come about as a result of economic decline: if young men were foregoing designer labels, expensive cars and hot dates at flash restaurants it was largely because, after the bursting of the Bubble and 15 years of stagnation, far fewer of them can afford these luxuries.

Japanese women, according to Professor Yamada’s research, have not caught up. Two out of five say they wish to marry a man who earns at least 6 million yen (£40,000) a year — but such men make up only 3.5 per cent of the eligible population. The result of such unrealistic female expectations is a generation of men, and women, who may never marry and have children.

About half of men aged 20 to 34, he says, are unmarried and only 20 per cent of them have girlfriends. Thirty per cent, according to Professor Yamada, have never had a girlfriend in their lives. For a country like Japan, which already has a shrinking population, this is a disaster.

“I worry that herbivorous boys are the future of Japan,” he says. “As young Japanese men become more timid and more averse to taking risks, it will affect the energy and vitality of the society.”



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6898611.ece

[Debaser11]

Very interesting. I think economic stagnation has some role in this phenomenon, for sure. But there's definitely something dark going on in Japan with regards to how people view themselves sexually.

Good find, Curtis.

[Sahson]

This was LOLworthy. Good find, but couldn't help but laugh.

[Psychonaut]

Japan...

Seriously, how do you go from this:

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/A.A.G.Schiebroek/samurai.jpg

to your society being "threatened" by cake-eating guys who don't date in less than a hundred years?

[Fortis in Arduis]

Oh this is not new, at different points in history this sort of behaviour has been tolerated to greater or lesser degrees.

Men are going frilly all the time.

Something like one in twenty men feel the need to feminise.

EDIT: Only the Japanese could turn it into a full-scale sub-cultural movement which has attracted the attention of marketeers.

[Cato]

Pansies.

http://singersong.homestead.com/Tiny_Tim_-_Tiptoe_through_the_tulips.jpg

[lei.talk]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/MishimaCoupSpeech.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima#Early_life)

When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be antagonized.

In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other boys thought I was crazy.

I hated myself all the time. As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway between classes.

Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked. Teachers gave me hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.

Then came Mr. Pepperman, my adviser. He was a powerfully built Vietnam veteran, and he was scary. No one ever talked out of turn in his class. Once one kid did and Mr. P. lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the blackboard.

Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me if I had ever worked out with weights. I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them to my mom’s car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.

Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.’s office after school. He said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we were getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing.

In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes. I didn’t want to blow it. I went home that night and started right in. Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other students didn’t know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I could feel it.

Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could ever take it away. You couldn’t say shit to me.

It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong. When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn’t teach you anything. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you.

It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.

I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.

I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr. Pepperman.

Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.

Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not strong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima). Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body. Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn’t see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads.

I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live.

Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole. I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the Iron mind.

Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind. The Iron is the best anti-depressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.

The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.

Henry Rollins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Rollins)

http://www.jack-donovan.com/mishima/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/henry_rollins_011.jpg

http://i51.tinypic.com/23rr1tw.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_the_Child)
*

[Cato]

In the U.S., nerds can score with women; in Japan, nerds eat plants.

[Curtis24]

The Henry Rollins article was interesting, but these Japanese men don't seem all that unhappy. Unlike Rollins, their behavior and lifestyles aren't a result of self-hatred and fear. They are perfectly content to take feminine roles.

What is going on is different. I am certain it is somehow connected to wider cultural changes in Japan, and indirectly connected to the state of the Japanese economy. Just how, is a difficult question.

Generations are a product of what is going on in their country and the world when they come of age. You see this in America - different types of upbringings produce different types of people

[Osweo]

Might there be strictly biological factors at work? Like the weird behavioral shifts and even physiological ones observed when rats are kept too densely packed or the like?

[Curtis24]

It could be biological changes facilitated by environmental ones. For instance, homosexuality has a clearly biological basis, yet many psychologists believe there are environmental factors. There's a correlation between having two or more older brothers and homosexuality, for example.

[Óttar]

All the women are becoming so westernised that the Japanese farmers can't take them, and are opting to import wives from Sri Lanka. :D

[Debaser11]

That seems strange to me considering that the Japanese are pretty aware of the importance of good genes. It's only Western dummies that largely ignore this. Or so I thought.

[Pallantides]

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/ac316/Pallantides/Samurai/samurai2.jpghttp://i911.photobucket.com/albums/ac316/Pallantides/Samurai/samurai1.jpghttp://i911.photobucket.com/albums/ac316/Pallantides/Samurai/SamuraiWarrior.jpg

see my post here:
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showpost.php?p=266229&postcount=35

[Debaser11]

Western men used to have wigs and wear rouge. I do think Japs like to be prissy, though. It's hard to know how much is genetic and how much is environmental. I usually always lean toward genetics but I do think economics is at work here with today's youth.

[Austin]

I dunno that the West is that extreme but certainly norms have changed a lot. Very few people under 24 can talk to someone on the phone for more than 5 minutes without having a panic attack.

Both girls and guys would rather text whole conversations rather than talk. I have friends who will think you are absolutely rude if you would rather talk on the phone than text. I get all the time "what you can't/don't want to text?" and I'm the bad one for not wanting to text for 20 minutes....especially for women this is an extreme problem.

The last girl I was seeing I stopped seeing because she couldn't talk on the phone and I cannot stand the arbitrary nature of an entire communication with a girl solely through texts I want to be able to talk to her.

[Cato]

A sissy is a sissy, regardless of the teminology used.

[Pallantides]

Western men used to have wigs and wear rouge.

Those were the days
http://www.costumes.org/history/racinet/2/18thfrench1.jpg



Also a lot of modern female fashion is based on military uniforms and male clothes from the 18th and 19th century.
http://www4.images.coolspotters.com/photos/38971/rag-and-bone-hussar-jacket-profile.jpghttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KDLpT5KM1D4/S8If17NQnNI/AAAAAAAAABE/NiEzwQWfZyQ/s1600/elliott-john-galliano-military-fashion-coat.jpghttp://www.marieclaire.com/cm/marieclaire/images/bv/1009-military-fashion-4-de.jpghttp://images.nymag.com/images/2/daily/2009/12/20091216_rianna_560x375.jpg

[Loddfafner]

http://www.changingworld.com/catalog/images/AP-0005.jpg

[Curtis24]

I dunno that the West is that extreme but certainly norms have changed a lot. Very few people under 24 can talk to someone on the phone for more than 5 minutes without having a panic attack.

Both girls and guys would rather text whole conversations rather than talk. I have friends who will think you are absolutely rude if you would rather talk on the phone than text. I get all the time "what you can't/don't want to text?" and I'm the bad one for not wanting to text for 20 minutes....especially for women this is an extreme problem.

The last girl I was seeing I stopped seeing because she couldn't talk on the phone and I cannot stand the arbitrary nature of an entire communication with a girl solely through texts I want to be able to talk to her.

Well I hate both the phone and texts, but I understand your particular disdain for texts. The problem is that the other person can carry the conversation on at their own leisure - not responding if they don't feel like it, or just cutting it off altogether.

[Óttar]

Also a lot of modern female fashion is based on military uniforms and male clothes from the 18th and 19th century.
I hate how women's fashion has even monopolised the boot. There used to be NOTHING more masculine than a tall leather charger-boot.

Women's fashion has even monopolised Oriental men's clothing. I once wore Rudraksha beads, and this girl across from me said something about 'metrosexual.' :rolleyes:

http://www.sacredwoods.net/images/rudraksha%20large%20108%20unknotted%201278.jpg

[Psychonaut]

Those were the days
[IMG]http://www.costumes.org/history/racinet/2/18thfrench1.jpg[/IMG

WTF dude? The pantyhose era was definitely not the peak of manly attire? :D

Thankfully things had progressed by the time the mid-1800s rolled around:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1c/FrockCoat.jpg


I hate how women's fashion has even monopolised the boot. There used to be NOTHING more masculine than a tall leather charger-boot.

Men don't wear boots in Beantown? Shit, I couldn't go anywhere in the South without seeing someone wearing a nice pair of boots:

http://western-wear-store.com/images/Black_Jack_Boot_L227C%5B1%5D.jpg

[Korbis]

Japs and in a larger extent the most developed asian societies hate being asians. You just have to take a walk on Tokyo to realize this. Most dye their hair and get surgery to make their eyes more rounded and look whiter. This also happens in Korea which is extensively anglo-americanized.

This man probably foresaw this and thus tried to protect his country from the rotteness and decay bringing back the old days of honour and national pride:

http://danliterature.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/mishima3.jpg?w=226&h=299

[Inese]

Those were the days
http://www.costumes.org/history/racinet/2/18thfrench1.jpg

Sorry but that is not really true!! :rolleyes: In that time the aristocrats and nobility upper class was wearing clothes like that but not the normal people on the street who were working every day in a facility in the town or at a farm! You cant say that it was a fashion for all men or women in that time, okay? It was a lifestyle of the total spoiled elite and they looked liked gay clowns and many of them were it....

[The Ripper]

You cant say that it was a fashion for all men or women in that time, okay?
He didn't, okay?


It was a lifestyle of the total spoiled elite!

Yeah, because the rest couldn't really afford "fashion" and so "fashion" was a thing for the wealthier classes of society. Commoners wore pragmatic clothing during the week and put on their slightly better clothes on Sundays.

[Pallantides]

Sorry but that is not really true!! :rolleyes: In that time the aristocrats and nobility upper class was wearing clothes like that but not the normal people on the street who were working every day in a facility in the town or at a farm! You cant say that it was a fashion for all men or women in that time, okay? It was a lifestyle of the total spoiled elite and they looked liked gay clowns and many of them were it....

This was the type of clothes worn in western Europe in 18th century:
http://www.sutlers.co.uk/acatalog/17thcenturymanfront.jpg
the lower classes also wore such jackets and pants.
http://www.1771.org/pics/farmer.gif

Norwegian farmer and peasant attire from the 18th and early 19th century:
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/1112/hitterdaldrakter.jpghttp://img690.imageshack.us/iclothesmg690/1112/hitterdaldrakter.jpghttp://img96.imageshack.us/img96/2814/tomennogenkonefraselbu.jpghttp://img717.imageshack.us/img717/7186/mannogkonefranordfjord.jpghttp://img686.imageshack.us/img686/5348/mannogkonefragudbrandsd.jpghttp://img535.imageshack.us/img535/3231/brudogbrudgomfrasetesda.jpghttp://img121.imageshack.us/img121/5523/brudogbrudgomfrahardang.jpghttp://img35.imageshack.us/img35/5621/drakterfrasunnfjord.jpghttp://img52.imageshack.us/img52/883/mannogkonefrastrndelag.jpghttp://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8693/folkedraktvang.jpg


Dano-Norwegian General's uniform:
http://www.arkivverket.no/originalbilder/uniform.jpg
http://www.naboer.se/images/historik/misslyckat.jpg

Norwegian infantry uniforms:
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/406/nor9am9.gif

[Osweo]

Also a lot of modern female fashion is based on military uniforms and male clothes from the 18th and 19th century.
http://www.marieclaire.com/cm/marieclaire/images/bv/1009-military-fashion-4-de.jpg
WOW. I'm converted. :suomut:

I hate how women's fashion has even monopolised the boot.
The first time I read that, I misunderstood it as 'women's fashion has come to monopolise fashion as a whole'. It is rather unfortunate that male attire has got stuck in a bit of a rut. I hate 'fashion' in general though, as it seems to me an awfully domineering thing, and horrendously restrictive; 'you can't wear that!' - Why not? :( There's not enough variety out there, for more extravagant or peculiar things to slip through unnoticed. I for one feel VERY comfortable in things like this;
http://www.rishelye.ru/imgmusz/233.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj109/smirnovdave/ww2primer/Sharovari_M-35__front_view__op_450x.jpg
Damn fashion! :rage

Worryingly, the best pic of the sort of boots I like, that I have just been able to find now is this;
http://media.nowpublic.net/images//a5/1/a51d915a82bee85df364cf8ed0c0f6b3.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Stalin%27s_Boots.jpg/444px-Stalin%27s_Boots.jpg
:eek:

[Debaser11]

Japs and in a larger extent the most developed asian societies hate being asians. You just have to take a walk on Tokyo to realize this. Most dye their hair and get surgery to make their eyes more rounded and look whiter. This also happens in Korea which is extensively anglo-americanized.

This man probably foresaw this and thus tried to protect his country from the rotteness and decay bringing back the old days of honour and national pride:

http://danliterature.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/mishima3.jpg?w=226&h=299

I don't think this is completely accurate. While it's true they will go out and get eye surgery and even dye their hair, don't mistake this for them wanting to be white. Many of them do find *ATTRACTIVE* whites to be attractive. (I know, "duh," right?) But I wouldn't confuse all this with them wanting to be white. In my experience, they are perfectly happy with most of their Asian phenotypes (skin, cheekbones, hair texture, nose). So while many of them like our "big" colorful eyes, they don't always care for the protruding noses and brow ridges that whites have. (Whites also have eyes that are closer together on average which also seems a bit "off" to them.) I think it's a mistake to think of it in terms of them wishing they were white or that they hate being Asian.

I mean, when whites get a tan, it's not like they want to be Arab, right?

[Cato]

Japan is just suffering from a case of ethnic inferiority complex. The pasting that the Japanese got in the Second World War blew all of the steel out of the national spine and now the Japanese male is a limp-dick compared to what his ancestors or a couple of generations ago.

Instead of bushi as the ideal Japanese man, you get grass-eating pansies, perverted salarymen, cross-dressing weirdos obsessed with cartoons, and heaven knows what else.

[Pallantides]

Transvestism, homosexuality and other pervertions are old traditions in Japan.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Kitagawa_Utamaro.jpg/800px-Kitagawa_Utamaro.jpg
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/7051/soldiersfuckingsmall.jpg
http://hilobrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Hokusai.jpg

[Austin]

Transvestism, homosexuality and other pervertions are old traditions in Japan.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Kitagawa_Utamaro.jpg/800px-Kitagawa_Utamaro.jpg
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/7051/soldiersfuckingsmall.jpg
http://hilobrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Hokusai.jpg

whoaaa

[Wyn]

whoaaa

You've never seen the octopus one before? I thought that was a reasonably well known picture.


http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/7051/soldiersfuckingsmall.jpg

What is that, soldier rape? What the fuck?

[Pallantides]

It's Japanese propaganda from the Russo-Japanese war

[anonymaus]

What is that, soldier rape? What the fuck?

What, they don't teach advanced enemy penetration in YOUR army?

[Wyn]

What, they don't teach advanced enemy penetration in YOUR army?

They teach us the good courtesy of removing one's hat beforehand.

[anonymaus]

They teach us the good courtesy of removing one's hat beforehand.

:yo:

[Loki]

Look on the bright side of things, lads. There are plenty of Japanese women out there who are longing for real men. :cool:









[ kidding ... before I get slaughtered! :p ]

[Loddfafner]

It looks more like a reverse rape. The guy in the green jacket is clearly more into it than the one in brown. I am reminded of the Victorian biographer Lytton Strachey who, when the draft board tested his conscientious objection to service in the Great War by asking how he would react to a German soldier raping his sister, replied, "I should try and interpose my own body."

[Curtis24]

Jesus, they fetishized tentacle rape even in medieval times?

[Voitto]

East Asian youth, particularly Koreans and Japanese are strangely effeminate. People say Western counrties are effeminate, but these guys take it to a whole new level.

The older generations aren't so bad, but for some reason the younger generations have become very girly and feminine. No wonder Japanese women have started go after white men whenever they get half a chance.

[Debaser11]

East Asian youth, particularly Koreans and Japanese are strangely effeminate. People say Western counrties are effeminate, but these guys take it to a whole new level.

The older generations aren't so bad, but for some reason the younger generations have become very girly and feminine. No wonder Japanese women have started go after white men whenever they get half a chance.

This is true. On the whole, Asian men seem more ill-equipped to compete for their own women than white men. A large sect of them have huge issues. It's like they're all emo or something. I think don't think Japanese women are exactly hoping that they have a shot with a white male, though. There are no shortages of white men who are into Asian chicks. So they don't have to wait for "half a chance," really. That's why the white male/Asian woman dynamic is so common.

[Austin]

Asians are super racist though I have seen a lot of middle-upper class Asian girls (which is like all of them lol) date white guys but then they end up marrying an Asian guy to please their parents and or be accepted in the Asian community.

Have a friend who is into Asian culture and he goes to Korea and all that and has an Asian gf....in all his pics though with her family the dad and mom are like giving him death-stares and its obvious he is oblivious to it I think or maybe he just ignores it not sure.

[Curtis24]

This is true. On the whole, Asian men seem more ill-equipped to compete for their own women than white men. A large sect of them have huge issues. It's like they're all emo or something. I think don't think Japanese women are exactly hoping that they have a shot with a white male, though. There are no shortages of white men who are into Asian chicks. So they don't have to wait for "half a chance," really. That's why the white male/Asian woman dynamic is so common.

Yeah, I had always read/heard that all those introverted, anime-enthusiasts who go over to Japan are elevated to almost alpha male status.

I think there is a strong biological component. White men have more masculinized faces than East Asians, while also benig in the same range of I.Q. as most East Asians.

Personally, I find white women physically more attractive than East Asian women.

[Cato]

Transvestism, homosexuality and other pervertions are old traditions in Japan.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Kitagawa_Utamaro.jpg/800px-Kitagawa_Utamaro.jpg
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/7051/soldiersfuckingsmall.jpg
http://hilobrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Hokusai.jpg

That kind of deviant lifestyle was usually found amongst the upper crust in feudal Japan, as it was in Greece and Rome.

[Cato]

Yeah, I had always read/heard that all those introverted, anime-enthusiasts who go over to Japan are elevated to almost alpha male status.

I think there is a strong biological component. White men have more masculinized faces than East Asians, while also benig in the same range of I.Q. as most East Asians.

Personally, I find white women physically more attractive than East Asian women.

East Asian women have a a certain grace to them, and a certain submissiveness that is instilled into them, especially in China, by centuries of Confucian influences. I've known two Americanized Japanese women in my time, both hags, and one very sweety, alomost docile, half-Korean/Half-Japanese girl, a hopeful poetess, who lives in Japan and has had minimal contact with westerners. She often asks me to proofread her poems, and she's often shy to the point of not really being able to say much (usually when we talk about things other than her poems). I asked her why, and her reply was "Because you're a man."

Not that I'm romanticizing Asian women, but there is a certain truth to the old stereotype of the submissive (to men) Asian woman. And then there're the hags.

As to choosing, if I had to choose a race of East Asian woman, it'd a Chinese woman. Korean and Japanese women are too westernized, and the almost alien mindset of the Chinese makes them more interesting. Also, I've known some Chinese in my time, closely and in passing, and they're always very interesting people. I once struck up a conversation with a waitress at my local Chinese restaurant, and she was very surprised that I knew so much about China (well, more than the average joe on the street).

[Debaser11]

Yeah, I had always read/heard that all those introverted, anime-enthusiasts who go over to Japan are elevated to almost alpha male status.

I think there is a strong biological component. White men have more masculinized faces than East Asians, while also benig in the same range of I.Q. as most East Asians.

Personally, I find white women physically more attractive than East Asian women.

Man, I've done so much commenting on this thread and the other thread with a similar topic in the past few days. Your post is mostly spot on, though, Curtis. Tons of white dorks can seriously land hot Asian chicks. You can't blame them (especially when they're not raised to be race conscious). It's like getting mad at the fat white chick who dates a black guy with a good physique who for some reason worships her.

I'm not sure about the masculinized face theory, though. The Asians in my experience just really seem to like "cute" over "brute." Even on men. It's weird. Like, they'd much prefer Orlando Bloom over Bruce Willis even though a ton of women in the U.S. would take a "rugged" Bruce Willis any day. Asian women IN Asia are just different. Grown ass women there go nuts over Hello Kitty accessories. Shit any sane Western woman would roll her eyes at. That might even partly explain why some of their men act "cute" (aka gay). But I honestly think overall Eurasian progressiveness relative to other races explains the mutual attraction between Europeans and East Asians more than anything.

I also think it's almost as if Asian men take their women's love of cuteness to such an extreme that a woman only needs to get a basic whiff of masculinity from any guy to be sold. (In other words, they want cute and tough but finding that balance can be difficult. Some dorky white guys seem to just inadvertantly hit pay dirt with their formula of watered-downed masculinity.)

And let's just face it. The Japs and even the Koreans now are told that interracial dating is cool by their media so many will date other races for superficial reasons. But they have a stronger racial/cultural resistance to that media than Europeans do. Furthermore, I suspect they know about IQ inheritance and how that is affected by race mixing. They are not biological egalitarians.

[Voitto]

I once struck up a conversation with a waitress at my local Chinese restaurant, and she was very surprised that I knew so much about China (well, more than the average joe on the street).

I too have found East Asians to be very suprised that a Westerner knows anything at all about their native countries, Chinese are often even suprised a Westerner knows the difference in location between Beijing and Shanghai and is aware of the constitutional status of Hong Kong.

However, I don't know whether they don't expect us to know anything merely because they considered Westerners to be somewhat dumb and uninterested in academics, or whether it stems from an inferiority complex and they're taken aback that anyone finds their country interesting enough to have taken the time to research it?

[Cato]

I too have found East Asians to be very suprised that a Westerner knows anything at all about their native countries, Chinese are often even suprised a Westerner knows the difference in location between Beijing and Shanghai and is aware of the constitutional status of Hong Kong.

However, I don't know whether they don't expect us to know anything merely because they considered Westerners to be somewhat dumb and uninterested in academics, or whether it stems from an inferiority complex and they're taken aback that anyone finds their country interesting enough to have taken the time to research it?

I had the impression that the waitress that I chatted with was under the impression that most non-Chinese wouldn't bother to take the time to learn anything about her country, no more than, say a Chinese person would take up an interest in American history. So, we've chattered a bit since then, and, I've also noticed that the entire staff of the restaurant has warmed up a bit to me- to the point where I'm on a first name basis with the owner of the place (Simon, a fellow from the Sichuan area I believe).

[anonymaus]

I've also noticed that the entire staff of the restaurant has warmed up a bit to me- to the point where I'm on a first name basis with the owner of the place (Simon, a fellow from the Sichuan area I believe).

If you have any familiarity with the language, he might eventually tell you his given name too. That's always a shocker for people who haven't been around Chinese very much. :D

[Debaser11]

In my experience, knowing ANY Korean at all will at least cause them to go into this whole motion of complete shock. They couldn't act more surprised if a dog began speaking to them.

[Cato]

If you have any familiarity with the language, he might eventually tell you his given name too. That's always a shocker for people who haven't been around Chinese very much. :D

I don't want to learn Mandarin or Cantonese, so I'll never know him except as Simon. Nice old chap.