Do Asian Men Fetishize White Women Just as Much as White Men Fetishize Asian Women?

There is something incredibly different about going to the gym in Malta compared to Japan. It is not just that the Maltese gym has a nearly even breakdown between female and male members. But it is how the female gym enthusiasts in Malta dress and behave. many show up only in a sports bra and tight figure-hugging leggings, revealing ample cleavage and their round bottoms for all to see. Many of them, clearly active on Instagram, would pose in front of the many mirrors of the gym, accentuating their flat abs and muscular legs for photos to be shared later online.

Having gone to the gym in Japan for years before moving to Malta, I am, to put bluntly, sexually aroused by the sight. Japanese gyms are almost entirely male in membership. But even when the rare female patron visits, there is little worth ogling about them. Most of them, perhaps fearing the unwanted attention from gym-goers of the opposite sex, almost always choose very loose-fitting T-shirts that stretch below their buttocks, shrouding everything between their necks and legs in what could be akin to the modesty concerns of conservative Muslim women's burqas.

But as I curiously peek across the gym floor for the toned breasts and butts of female Maltese gym-goers, I notice that I seem to be the abnormal one. Perhaps I am just letting my curiosity take over, making up for the deficiency of the same back in Japan. But for the men who frequent my gym here in Malta, many do not even bat an eye toward their female counterparts no matter how, in my definition, the females are provocatively dressed. The males at the gym simply focus on listening to the music blasting from their smartphones and keeping their eyes on the gym equipment.

Are they just really good at respecting the fashion choices of the female denizens? Perhaps some are. But anecdotally, it might not be the full story. Outside the gym, provocative dress is also common. As warm summer weather arrives on the extensive Maltese coastline, the island's seaside is full of young, attractive women in skimpy bikinis for all to see. Yet, as many of them brazenly adjust their tiny coverings and straps in crowded areas, with some even taking off tops completely to let their bare breasts get tanned as well, they do not seem to attract much obvious male gaze.

What gives? Are the residents of Malta just so surrounded by beautiful, nearly naked women that they no longer get titillated by their visual presence? Or that their standard of beauty is so different, so much higher than mine, that most of the young things letting their assets hang out in public are just not even pretty enough to deserve visual appreciation? Am I, as someone who has not seen white women in real life by their hundreds living in Japan for so many years, simply so enamored by the sight of them that I am willing to overlook any deficiencies?

As preposterous as that might sound at first, the racial aspect of sexual attraction makes great sense. Reflecting on my time in Japan and now here in Malta, I have to say that neither I nor the many Asian men I have come across have frequently engaged in earnest conversations with white women of their age. Rather, the relationship is always of physical and emotional distance, no different from "we" staring at "them" as objects of fascination rather than fellow humans with something aside from voluptuous bosoms and behinds. Asian men with white girlfriends? Rare. With normal white female friends? Rarer.

Asian men also complain about white men who fetishize Asian women, seeing them as meek, submissive objects who can satisfy their every sexual fantasy that independent, opinionated white women vehemently object to. But while the Asian men detest that objectification, inadvertently, are they not just as bad in their own objectification of white women? Rather than seeing them as people to befriend, with feelings and thoughts, don't many Asian men fantasize about sexual relationships with white women as a matter of conquering those "pure" S-shaped bodies that they do not see among Asian women?

It is an opportunity to rethink my biases. Whereas the Asian men question why so many white men are attracted to Asian women who would not be considered beautiful by any means in their "native" communities, perhaps my fellow male gym-goers would be puzzled by why I am so keen to ogle the many white women, in their willingness to reveal so much of their bare skin, smack more of unattractive desperation for attention rather than anything worthy of sexual fantasies. It is a reminder that beauty is subjective, with each objective behavior interpretable as sexually inviting or plainly repulsive.