Is oriental racist? Alternatives?

[SimonDoom]

I've definitely met guys who took preference to fetish level. But thanks for trying to correct my personal experience.

The line between preference and fetish can be blurry, I think.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with finding people of a certain ethnic background attractive. But I can see how one might be bothered to see other people viewing one's background in a fetishistic way.

As a middle-aged white guy, I've never encountered this. I suppose there are people out there with fetishes about middle-aged white guys, but if there are, they're being quiet about it, and they're not writing a lot of stories on Literotica, as far as I can tell. That's fine with me.

I'm not sure how I'd feel if somebody had a fetish for something about me. I may never know.

 

[R. Richard]

That would be YOUR opinion. Correct?

Incorrect. Asian was suggested to be used as a means of describi9ng only certain Asian people. The others are omitted and the omission denigrates at least one race (Ainu may be a race.)

 

[R. Richard]

People can call me anything they want. Just don't call me late for dinner.

I would strongly suggest that you avoid calling me a 'crude motherfucker', in my presence. The life that yo9u save may be yours.

 

[Lily_Wight]

(Closed)

 

[Captainnumnuts]

I would strongly suggest that you avoid calling me a 'crude motherfucker', in my presence. The life that yo9u save may be yours.

I did? Might want to look into that spellchecker of yours.

Also, this isn't the place for whatever vendetta you're on about. The GB is another forum for such nonsense. Dear.

 

[Handley_Page]

How would you write about a character who accentuates their Caucasianness?

An excelent point

I find it weird the consider this racist. The orient is a region. Calling someone oriental should be like calling someone a new-englander, or a Midwesterner. It just helps narrow the field a little bit. Asian is so generic. It includes a lot of people's outside of the southeast coastline.

But whatever. It's all nonsense...

People get offended by the weirdest things. Racists and bigots use a word in a hateful manner a few too many times and all of a sudden the word is verboten even though it is a perfectly cromulent word.
.
It's all ridiculous. We need to stop being offended by the words and worry more about the way people are using them. "Don't talk to me like that," instead of, "Don't call me that!"

The word used isn't important. The intent is.

Erm. . . I had to look up 'Cromulent'
That's a new one to me

 

[Gentleman_G]

I mean how many non Asians can pick specifics like that at a glance? Not many and I can't myself as often as not.

* Raises hand ...

Then again, I'm partially Indonesian, though born and raised in The Netherlands, I might not qualify as non-asian. I do seem to have a knack to distinguish Chinese, Thai, Korean and Japanese people though. But perhaps that's just because I like the Japanese culture and realized some particular features that belong to Koreans or Chinese which Japanese don't have.

The only thing my features earned me was suspicion when I visited Japan and had to stand post outside the toilet when my girlfriend needed to go.
Almost got dragged away by security for looking suspicious with my photocamera. That wouldn't have happened if I were caucasian-looking!

I don't mind being called Asian, but it does bother me that it almost always comes up in reference to guys having a fetish.

There's a hugh fetish concerning schoolgirls, I know that. But being asian as a fetish? I'm not familiar with that. But perhaps having a preference for asian women might dull my senses in seeing those people as having a fetish rather than sharing my preference. Which is by no means downplaying your experiences, make no mistake.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I find it weird the consider this racist. The orient is a region. Calling someone oriental should be like calling someone a new-englander, or a Midwesterner. It just helps narrow the field a little bit. Asian is so generic. It includes a lot of people's outside of the southeast coastline.

But whatever. It's all nonsense...

"Oriental" is from the Latin word for East. So,the question is "east of what?"

East of Europe, of course, so using it implies that all things are measured by their relationship to Europe.

It's not hard to imagine why non-Europeans might not care for that.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I wouldn't use the term oriental unless the character saying it was in his 70s. Lol

Agreed. It sounds old fashioned.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I wouldn't use the term oriental unless the character saying it was in his 70s. Lol

Definitely out of fashion. People have called me oriental and it bothers me, but I wouldn't correct them unless the intent seemed questionable.

I don't mind being called Asian, but it does bother me that it almost always comes up in reference to guys having a fetish.

Now me, I like that fetish as long as it doesn't go to far. I have this thing for older Caucasian guys that like Asian girls. Go figure .... (not exactly a surprise if you read my stories now is it.... )

Oriental sounds like something out of an old sax rohmer novel. Dr Fu Manchu, the evil oriental....

 

[ishtat]

Just so long as no-one says I'm Occidental.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Just so long as no-one says I'm Occidental.

That would only be by occident if one was dis-oriented.

 

[Handley_Page]

I don't get it.
To describe someone as "an Oriental" is no more brutal that to describe another as "an American".

It strikes me that there are malicious forces who are deliberately inciting discord by trying to winkle out some sort of description (perhaps to annoy the average peaceful person?)

 

[SimonDoom]

That would only be by occident if one was dis-oriented.

Well done.

You really need to weigh in on the Rewriting History thread, which devolved, as BiscuitHammer rightly pointed out, from an intelligent discussion about historical revisionism into a contest of bad seafood puns. For which I'm partly responsible. I don't apologize for it.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I don't get it.
To describe someone as "an Oriental" is no more brutal that to describe another as "an American"

I have no idea where the negative connotations of "oriental" came from but speaking personally, I don't like that word being applied to me. Asian is, for whatever reason, far more acceptable and one I like. Weird. Never really thought about that one at all.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I don't get it.
To describe someone as "an Oriental" is no more brutal that to describe another as "an American".

You're forgetting the whole historical/cultural context of the word's usage, which encompasses some fairly untidy circumstances over the last three centuries, most with either blatant or subtle racial overtones.

Besides, several Asians have replied here, all of whom have stated a preference not to be called Oriental - what's not to get about that?

 

[KeithD]

"Oriental" is from the Latin word for East. So,the question is "east of what?"

East of Europe, of course, so using it implies that all things are measured by their relationship to Europe.

It's not hard to imagine why non-Europeans might not care for that.

This. Oriental (established by the European perspective) originally included anything from the Mideast (itself taken from the European perspective) east (most oriental carpets are from Turkey and other Arab countries). The same with the term "Far East," which has changed to "East Asia." I have two degrees with this "Western" perspective as degree titles on the sheepskin--Far East Affairs and Foreign Affairs (foreign to who? Now termed "international relations"), so it isn't a perspective going too far back in time. If I had a character in his 70s or 80s talking about the issue, I might have him saying "oriental" to help date him.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I find that weird too. It's a combination of negro and Niger which both me black. It shouldn't be a derisive word to begin with.

People get offended by the weirdest things. Racists and bigots use a word in a hateful manner a few too many times and all of a sudden the word is verboten even though it is a perfectly cromulent word.

...and once upon a time the swastika was a Buddhist and Jainist symbol of rebirth. In some parts of the world it still can symbolise those things, but when white dudes in Western countries wear it, those are not the associations we draw.

Words and symbols mean what people use them to mean, regardless of what they once used to mean. "Lavatory" comes from Latin "lavare", and once upon a time it simply meant a place where you washed yourself. Now it means the place where people urinate and defecate; you'd never say "I'm going to the lavatory" if your purpose was to wash yourself in the shower.

Within living memory, a "computer" was a person who did calculations.

Once upon a time, back when our ancestors spoke proto-Indo-European, the word "bhel" meant "to shine". Descended from that word we now have "bleach", "black", "yellow", "blue", and "flamingo". But you will not get very far insisting that those words should be interpreted the same just because of shared etymology.

When a particular word is used heavily by racist assholes to describe the targets of their racism, that word picks up racist baggage.

Transsexual is ok now,

...not as a general rule, no. There are contexts where it's okay - which mostly boil down to "when somebody has told you that they're okay with being described as 'transsexual'" - but as a rule, you're better off using "transgender" or "trans" (both as adjectives, not as nouns).

but not tranny even though you can call a can driver a cabby.

Yes, because those words carry different baggage. When a trans person hears somebody use "tr*nny", it's almost invariably in a hostile context, often carrying a serious threat of violence. "Cabby" doesn't carry that threat.

Depending on who you talk to or the time of day gay, queer, and homo can all be good or bad, but dag is 100% off limits in some countries but not others.

Yep. And my manager's husband can call her "darling", but if I do that I'll probably get fired. And I can make jokes in a team meeting but I can't put those same jokes in a work report.

And my partner and I can say "fuck you" to one another over a game of Scrabble and it's all in fun, but if I say the exact same thing to her when she asks me why I haven't done the dishes, it's not okay.

And if somebody asks "is potassium fluoride a salt?" in the chemistry lab the answer is yes, but if somebody says "pass me the salt" at dinner and I give them a shaker full of potassium fluoride I'm likely to be charged with a felony.

And sometimes "organic" means carbon-based and sometimes it means "food grown without use of certain agricultural technologies".

And, and, and...

Language (and social interaction more generally) is highly contextual. Always has been, always will be. It perplexes me that some people only seem to notice this, or have a problem with it, when it comes down to "don't refer to minority groups by language that's historically been used to attack them".

It's all ridiculous. We need to stop being offended by the words and worry more about the way people are using them. "Don't talk to me like that," instead of, "Don't call me that!"

The word used isn't important. The intent is.

That's great if you're telepathic. For everybody else, the words you use have a lot of influence on how they interpret your intent. Especially when you use words that are generally understood to be slurs.

 

[R. Richard]

Let me try to explain my outlook on race ethnicity and religion.
I spent some of my younger years in South Central Los Angeles. I started out as Whi' Boy, which was sufficient to identify me in that time and place. I appear to be of average size and I had perhaps five street fights a week. Had I not won, I would be dead. I was diagnosed as a paranoid psychotic. I pointed out to the mental health people that there were actually people trying to kill me and I was not paranoid, under their definition. After time and fights, I was called Willie Green("Folks say that Willie Green is the baddest motherfucker that the world has ever seen.")
My religion was Thug. However, the worship of Thuggee (the one true aspect of Kali) is illegal.
For those who claim to be Chinese, what about Zhuang, Uyghur, Manchu, Tibetan, Mongol, etc?
If you want a fight, ask a Japanese if he's Korean.
I don't claim to be superior or inferior to any race or ethnicity. I don't approve of making a person's religion illegal.
If I appear to be confrontational, please consider my background.
By the way, you can get an idea of my background by reading 'Whi' Boy' from Amazon or Smashwords.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

That's great if you're telepathic. For everybody else, the words you use have a lot of influence on how they interpret your intent. Especially when you use words that are generally understood to be slurs.

No. It's not telepathy. It's context.

"Hey bitch, what up?" is way different than, "Hey bitch! Fuck you!"

Both sentences use bitch. One is playful (it can be used with guys, so don't think I'm being sexist here), and the other is very threatening.

Context.

An excelent point





Erm. . . I had to look up 'Cromulent'
That's a new one to me

You need to embiggen your vocabulary.

 

[MelissaBaby]

No. It's not telepathy. It's context.

"Hey bitch, what up?" is way different than, "Hey bitch! Fuck you!"

.

You don't think that implying that a man is female as a means to insult or belittle him is sexist?

 

[ChloeTzang]

You don't think that implying that a man is female as a means to insult or belittle him is sexist?

Depends how well you know them and the context. I say "hey bitch" to one or tow of my friends but they're really good friends. Couple of male friends we shoot with and a few other social activities and it'd be something like "hey retard" if they screw up or do something stupid. There'd be a lot of things like that that are socially contextual.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Depends how well you know them and the context. I say "hey bitch" to one or tow of my friends but they're really good friends. Couple of male friends we shoot with and a few other social activities and it'd be something like "hey retard" if they screw up or do something stupid. There'd be a lot of things like that that are socially contextual.

It doesn't matter how well you know someone. Calling a man a bitch as a putdown is based on the concept that being female is a bad thing.

 

[ChloeTzang]

It doesn't matter how well you know someone. Calling a man a bitch as a putdown is based on the concept that being female is a bad thing.

My beloved says yep, he agrees with you completely. Hmmmm. I'm trying to think of a female equivalent that would bug me.

 

[Bramblethorn]

(post slightly reordered to split out the parenthetical)

(it can be used with guys, so don't think I'm being sexist here)

I've often heard "you play like a girl" directed at guys. I'm not convinced this gives a free pass on sexism.

No. It's not telepathy. It's context.

"Hey bitch, what up?" is way different than, "Hey bitch! Fuck you!"

Both sentences use bitch. One is playful ... and the other is very threatening.

...so, how do you know that the former is likely to be playful and the latter threatening?

Because of past experience. You've heard people using "what up?" and you know it's usually friendly; you've heard "fuck you" before and you know it's almost always an aggressive challenge, except when used between people who are in a good mood and trust one another.

Now, when you use the N-word or the T-word or any of the other "but why can't we use that word?" words, your listener has their own past experience with that word, which may be a lot more extensive and a lot less pleasant than yours. That is their context, and when you're speaking to somebody, it's the listeners' context that matters for interpretation.

(As an aside, one of the big problems with the "it's just a joke" line is that assholes frequently use "jokes" as a deniable way to push boundaries and see just how much they can get away with. It is literally part of the neo-Nazi playbook.)