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Editor's note: This article is part of The Fighters, a series of reports from a full-length film that premieres on CNN International TV on May 17 and 18 at 1900 HKT; 2200 CET; 2200 ET. The documentary is a result of two years of undercover work and filming in the Philippines.
Manila, Philippines (CNN) -- Birds chirp outside. A motorcycle groans up a nearby hill. And in a small, warm room filled with books and framed drawings, a young woman we're calling Maria tears at a tissue as she prepares to tell how sex traffickers corrupted her life.

"I was 15 when I was recruited," she said. "I had to find a job because my father had a lung problem and I needed to find money so we could send him to the hospital."

Maria met a person in her province who said he could find her a job in Manila.

"I thought I was going to work as a dishwasher in a restaurant," she said. "But when I arrived I realized it was a 'casa.'" 'Casa' is a code word for brothel in the Philippines.

Many young girls fall prey to human traffickers. They often leave their homes and villages in the provinces, seeking opportunities to support their families.

The traffickers are adept at convincing them to travel with them.
Cecilia Flores-Oebanda is presented with The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child by Sweden's Queen Silvia on April 28, 2011. Anti-trafficker attracts power brokers Government: 100,000 sex workers are kids
"I traveled through the islands. It took me 24 hours to reach Manila. When I got there, I found 16 girls staying in the same small place. Some were as young as 13-years-old," she said.

Maria was trapped and forced to have sex with a number of foreign and Filipino men.

Although she was there for only a few weeks before the Filipino police raided the apartment and freed her and the others, the damage had been done.

Maria routinely saw up to 13 customers a day. Her captors forced her to go to extreme lengths to deceive them into thinking she was a virgin in order to command higher prices.

"We were forced to take a cotton ball and dip it in pigeon's blood, then put that in our sex organ," she says. As outrageous as that is, it is not unusual.

In some parts of Asia, anti-trafficking groups have found that men believe sex with a virgin can cure their HIV/AIDS.

Social workers say that's led to a disturbing trend with tragic consequences for the victims of human trafficking. UNICEF estimates as many as 100,000 children work in the illegal sex trade in the Philippines.
Click here to get full infographic on human trafficking in the Philippines
Many women are also forced to prostitute themselves, not because of financial circumstances, but because they fear violence against themselves or their families, if they try to escape.

While filming the CNN Freedom Project documentary, we interviewed three girls, whose story was so profound and distressing, it left me in tears, the only time in my 15-year career that's happened.

The interview started out normally, with the girls singing into the microphone and telling us about Tom & Jerry cartoons and the crushes they had on the musician Bruno Mars.

They seemed like typical 12-year-olds, but what they would tell us about what they'd been through, stopped me cold.

"The trauma is really so deep," says Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, the director of the Visayan Forum Foundation, an organization that cares for recued girls. "They wake up in the middle of the night screaming and crying because they are so afraid the trafficker will come again. Sometimes one of the kids suddenly gets sick and vomits. Our psychologist said it's because she remembers what these guys on the Internet asked her to do."
Read Oebanda's amazing story -- from rebel fighter to anti-trafficking icon but now she has a new fight
One of the girls said: "At the internet café they tell me to take my clothes off and then they make me dance [in front of the camera]. I was kind of embarrassed because I'm not used to being naked like that."
Child advocate wants Pacquiao's help Manny Pacquiao is known the world over for his boxing abilities, but in the Philippines he's also a national hero beyond the ring. Click through to see moments of Pacquiao's life. Pacquiao outside the ring In these rarely seen photos, taken by Manny Pacquiao's personal photographer James Dayap, we take a glimpse at the boxer's training regimen for the Timothy Bradley fight in June 2012, which would become one of the most controversial bouts of his career. Pacquiao in training
Often that wasn't enough for paying customers on the other side of the sex chat room. For $27 an hour, anyone could tell the girls what to do, and a man behind the camera would make sure they did it.

The girls told of men coming in off the street and the girls having to perform sexual acts. Animals were sometimes involved. And perverts took deranged pleasure in watching the girls suffer these terrible abuses.

"Sometimes we had to urinate," says the girl in the middle. Her friend to the right adds: "The urine is mixed with juice as a drink."

"That's what the American client wants. He demands anyone who feels like urinating should do so, but that he wants us to do it in front of the camera."

I asked the children what they think about Americans.

"You're maniacs," one of the girls says, sharply. "You need to stop victimizing girls like us."
Read what happened when CNN journalists went undercover in Manila's red light district
The Visayan Forum Foundation, which has operated in the Philippines since 1991, says it has reached out to more than 70,000 victims or potential victims of human trafficking, and provided services to, or helped rescue, more than 15,000 victims.

"The cases we handle in the Visayan Forum is always on trafficking for prostitution and domestic servitude," says Oebanda. "Now there's a new phenomenon of trafficking for cybersex. We observe that [the victims] are becoming younger and younger."

During filming, we witnessed several raids conducted by the Philippines Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, referred to commonly as IACAT.

One of those raids involved two suspected traffickers and four teenage girls coming in to Manila aboard a passenger ferry. Officers with the Coast Guard and Port of Manila police intercepted the group before they could disembark.

"One of the [girls] is around 15 years old and another one is around 16 or 17 years old, so that's a qualified case of human trafficking," says Oebanda.

They told social workers they were heading to a city north of Manila where the trafficker planned a live show in a cybersex den and where they would be prostituted.

Oebanda and lawyers with the Philippines' Department of Justice filed charges against the two suspects, realizing it could be years before the trial is finished.

New cases like these were always heartbreaking for Maria, whose own attempts to embrace a new life were cruelly snatched away. In March this year, she died from complications as she gave birth to her second child, social workers told CNN.

One of the last things Maria said to CNN was a message to warn others.

"Please, do not to believe all the promises, especially from people you don't know, because a lot of things can happen if you leave with them."

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Victims endure lives degraded by traffickers

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Editor's note: This article is part of The Fighters, a series of reports from a full-length film that premieres on CNN International TV on May 17 and 18 at 1900 HKT; 2200 CET; 2200 ET. The documentary is a result of two years of undercover work and filming in the Philippines.

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Philippine Statistics Authority | Republic of the Philippines

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Among the nine basic sectors, farmers, fishermen and children belonging to families with income below the official poverty threshold or poor families posted the highest poverty incidences in 2015 at 34.3%, 34.0% and 31.4%, respectively. These sectors consistently registered as the three sectors with the highest poverty incidence in 2006, 2009 and 2012.

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Poverty in the Philippines Facts, Statistics & Images

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Here is the clearest picture of the severity of the poverty in the Philippines, not painted by the government, and above all, the real solutions

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I remember the moment vividly. I was at the beach in the Dominican Republic with my sister and had just gone up to the bar to get some food when an older man started a conversation with me. He told me his name and said he was from France. Perhaps naively, I was excited for an opportunity to practice the French we had been learning in school with "a real French person," so we chatted for a bit while I waited for my food. He said he was a public administrator at a hospital. "Quel age a vous?" I said in my broken French. "Je suis cinquante-sept," he replied (57 years old). After a while I started looking for my sister, about to leave, when it happened. The man ordered a second drink and handed it to me. My face must have conveyed confusion as I began to realize his less-than-wholesome intentions, because he placed his hand on top on mine, leaned in and whispered, "Don't worry. You don't have to do anything yet." I was 17 years old.

An episode on the Huffington Post Love+Sex Podcast titled, " Here is what it's like to be a sex tourist" (subtitled: Leaving the country never felt so good)," co-hosted by Carina Kolodny and Noah Michelson asks us to rethink sex tourism. They begin by stating that the podcast is not about "the sex tourism that a lot of people imagine; something like an older man going to a poor country and spending the week with trafficked underage girls."

The word "imagine" implies that the dynamic of an older man looking to pay for sex with younger, poor locals is just a figment of our imaginations, not a reality, and therefore up for debate. In order to further distract us from that reality, sex tourism is defined for the listener in the most vague and imprecise way possible - according to both Kolodny and Michelson, "Sex tourism can mean many different things depending on who you are and what you're looking to find." The definition is so loose that we are tempted to do away with any empirical understanding we already have of the issue.

During the episode, we hear from two men who travel abroad to engage in sex tourism. One of them is a man named Matt from Australia who travels to San Francisco and the other is a man named Jay who identifies himself as a "public figure" who needs to "protect his identity" while he fulfills what both he and the podcast itself define as "a need." The third guest is a woman named Jody Hanson who wrote a book on the sex industry called The Business of Sex, and the fourth is a man named Elard Tissot Van Patot, founder and CEO of the Red Light District Tour in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam, Australia, San Francisco... Forget about people traveling to poor countries looking for sex with local girls and women who have no choice but to sell sex for survival - sex tourism is cosmopolitan and fashionable!

In the sex tourism industry, globalization and patriarchy cooperate so that, even in wealthier countries, it is still the bodies and lives of marginalized women and girls that are commodified and objectified in order to ensure profit and pleasure for the privileged. Most women and girls prostituted in wealthier countries (like in Western Europe, for example) are still immigrants from economically poorer countries, like Eastern Europe as well as Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Buyers don't need to travel abroad to find their choice of " exotic" women and girls - in the global sex trade, they are shipped in.

The hosts focus an inordinate amount of attention on apps and how strange it is to "find sex" without them. Michelson asks "what did people do before apps?" and Kolodny replies, "Such a sad question. Because I feel like everyone can apply that question to every sector of their lives. Like, how did I drive without GPS?" Never mind that owning a phone, having an internet connection, or having a car are, in and of themselves, marks of immense privilege... Only about a quarter of the world's population even own a smartphone, but according to the hosts, this "sad" reality confines people to "the dark ages." Knowing full well what sex tourism looks like first hand in a global south country, the unchecked privilege and obliviousness of the hosts and guests featured in the episode is infuriating.

As is becoming common practice among Western, privileged, liberal feminists, Hanson's book describes the sex industry as if it were a grassroots organization, driven by the supply side rather than the ( overwhelmingly male) demand side. "Sex is a business," reads the blurb on her website. "For a sex worker, it is a way of making a living; for a madam, it is a service industry enterprise; for a stripper, it is creating an illusion; for a dominatrix, it is maintaining control; for a consort, it is getting paid for what he might do anyway." Ignoring the fact that very few women or girls would be coerced into the industry in the first place if demand from men were not so intense creates a mythical image of prostitution, one that says women simply "choose" it because they enjoy sex with strange men so much.

When asked to address reservations people might have about sex tourism, Hanson says, "People tend to get moralistic about it," adding, "They don't really understand how it works." She wants us to believe people's concerns are not about exploitation, poverty, or wealthier men seeking out marginalized girls and women, but can simply be chalked up to people being prudish about sex.

Almost as an afterthought, Kolodny introduces the idea that "there definitely is conclusive and extensive evidence that sex tourism leads to the exploitation and enslavement of vulnerable people and that a lot of times, they are started younger... and have really no [way] of breaking out of that." To which Hanson responds, "Well, that's quite true." She then goes on to say that, although Kolodny's point is fair, we need to have "a balanced focus." In other words, "Yes, we know there's exploitation. Yes, we know there are children being pushed into the sex tourism industry... but what about the happy hooker narrative?" As if a few stories of empowerment through exploitation somehow offset the system as a whole. As if poverty justifies exploitation.

When asked what should be done to prevent sexual exploitation in sex tourism, Hanson says that any regulations at all are detrimental because "the sex industry has a natural way of evolving on its own and that if you leave it alone people will sort it out." This statement, as we have seen, is not only ignorant but also extremely dangerous given how the growth of the sex industry is fueling human trafficking and child exploitation. (And how badly free-market ideology has failed marginalized people, in general...)

Listeners are informed that the Netherlands is a place that "has been lauded for its approach to sex tourism and prostitution." This is stated as fact and without mention that about 60 to 75 per cent of the people working in prostitution in the Netherlands are women and girls from economically deprived countries, or what sex industry advocates call "migrant sex workers" (many of whom are trafficked). In fact, according to statistics provided by the Dutch government, 71 per cent of the victims of trafficking in the Netherlands end up in the sex industry. About 88 per cent of those trafficking victims are women and girls who are, on average, 25 years old. That crime and legalized prostitution are deeply interconnected in Amsterdam and that trafficking has increased since legalization also goes unmentioned.

Founder of the Red Light District Tour, Elard Tissot Van Patot, frames the discussion as one of sexual empowerment for the prostitute and vigilant persecution from the state. But, again, where is the demand side in this industry? Why do people like Van Patot go to such great lengths to obscure who is actually driving such a profitable enterprise?

Van Patot's website refers to prostitutes as " whores." Under the heading, "The Hooker Through the Ages," it reads:

"The whore is always the source of many different reactions. Jealousy is certainly one. And many a spouse was relieved to see her man go to the Red Light District, as she refused to have sex with him. The whore always made good money and so did those around her, like the pimp, the inn etc., as is apparent from all the inns in paintings, where leisure, beer, kissing and making- out is depicted in a straight forward way."

This language references representations of prostitution from paintings done by men. It goes on to explain, "In present days, Lilith lives as much as back then. More and more women free their untamable Lilith energy - their free, dark, sexual, tempting, and creative powers." This is narrative of prostituted women as sexually empowered hedonists is popular among those who prefer fantasy to reality, as most all johns do.

This podcast teaches us about sex tourism based on information from two johns, a woman who profits from the narrative of "sex work as female empowerment," and a man who makes a living exploiting foreign nationals in a wealthy country. No wonder we end up with such a dishonest presentation.

Towards the end of the episode, we are reminded that sex tourism is not as bad as we think because women participate as buyers too. (Trying to argue that the exception makes the rule is a common tactic engaged in by those who wish to normalize or excuse systems of oppression.) In fact, when you google the words "sex tourism" you'll find a multitude of articles about female sex tourists who visit poorer countries looking for young, sexy local men, as if that evens the score. These stories represent a very small minority that pales in comparison to male demand in the sex industry, but we are left with the idea that female sex tourism is on the rise, and that, therefore, it's gender equitable.

When you prioritize the anonymity of privileged men in the Global North or wealthier countries in order to defend the exploitation of countess women and girls in the Global South, you see imperialism at work. When your justifications are directly tied to the objectification of a fetishized Other, you are engaging in racist, classist, sexualization - you maintain and perpetuate a system that assumes that the bodies of marginalized people (overwhelmingly women and girls) exist to satisfy the manufactured "needs" of wealthier, more privileged people.

That moment - when a 57-year-old French man placed his hand on top of mine, assuming my sole purpose for being at a local beach in my own country was for his pleasure - has replayed itself in my life countless times... German men, French men, men from the United States... It is difficult to explain what it feels like to know that the harrowing realities of poverty and scarcity in your country become pornified experiences for tourists looking for fun (or what the Huffington Post Love+Sex Podcast calls "sex positivity.") I sometimes wonder what would happen if that French man had approached a 17-year-old French girl with an alcoholic drink in a public place and solicited sex from her in front of strangers, instead of me, a girl from the Dominican Republic. The conversation would be very different.

What happened to me is happening to many girls and women across the globe because our designation as "economically deprived" works in tandem with the exoticization of our bodies in a sickening way. As a fellow Dominican friend said, "Colonization never ended. It's just changed its face." And as the Huffington Post podcast put it, oh so casually, "It's kinda problematic."

Tags: Elard Tissot Van Patot, Huffington Post, Jody Hanson, liberal feminism, prostitution, Raquel Rosario Sanchez, Red Light District Tour, sex tourism, the sex industry

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I remember the moment vividly. I was at the beach in the Dominican Republic with my sister and had just gone up to the bar to get some food when an older man started a conversation with me. He told me his name and said he was from France.

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The Sexual Fields of Empire Emmanuel David

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The Sexual Fields of Empire Emmanuel David

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Centered on sex industry in Philippines

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Links to sex tourism fueling the demand for sex workers

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Links to sex tourism fueling the demand for sex workers

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When women are told, "You know you want it." When the U.S. elects as president a man who openly claims to grab women's genitals without their consent. When women experience street harassment on a daily basis. When survivors of rape are dismissed, disbelieved, and told they were " asking for it. "

When Asian women are stereotyped as "submissive" and "exotic." When fetishes for Asian women get reduced to and perceived as, "Well, why is it a problem that you're told you're all so beautiful and delicate? It's a compliment."

All of the above are examples of rape culture ― cultural practices that excuse or tolerate sexual violence by ignoring, trivializing, or normalizing it. Rape culture is entrenched in society at ideological, institutional, and individual levels.

For Asian women, experiences of racism and sexism intersect with rape culture.

For this article, I'm focusing on how this shows up primarily for East Asian women - however, it's important to note the unfortunate ways Asian women become homogenized by others as East Asian. There is some overlap here with what South Asian, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, and Muslim women experience, but these communities have unique experiences that go beyond the scope of this piece.

Being fetishized, exoticized, and sexualized as geishas, china dolls, lotus blossoms, and dragon ladies to being perceived as "model minorities" and also "perpetual foreigners." These stereotypes leveraged against East Asian women have been normalized, just like rape culture. These tropes can be found in representations in media, comments that harass us sexually and racially, and ways we're constructed via laws and policy.

They're tied to experiences of racialized, sexual violence. And they might even be something that you dismiss as harmless - or even as compliments.

As a result of society's common dismissal, these experiences of racialized, sexual violence too often go ignored. We must recognize what's really going on here in order to do something about it.

So below are ways that racist and sexist tropes leveraged against East Asian women intersect with rape culture.

1. The Idea of "Geishas" and "China Dolls" Objectifies Us

The "Lotus Blossom" and "China Doll" stereotypes objectify East Asian women as compliant, subservient, and delicate.

Imagined as decorative object or a toy, these tropes commodify Asian women into passive objects - made to be seen, played with, or touched, but not heard. Their value relies only on their bodies or looks.
It creates a false fantasy where exotic aesthetics get projected onto Asian women.
As these tropes homogenize all Asian women as "Chinese," but they also stem from a specific history where Chinese women were imported as part of a sex trade.

Similarly, the current appropriations and historically inaccurate reductions of "geisha" into a sexualized identity imagines Asian women as passive commodities of sex.

The emphasis of these stereotypes on submission and docility imagines them as without agency and without the capacity to give consent. These assumptions can't possibly imagine Asian women to make their own decisions or have power over their bodies.
Imagining Asian women as deferential and obedient to "authority" assumes consent when it's not given.
Mainstream media, including the porn industry, has created a dangerous myth that Asian women enjoy being dominated or serve at the behest of someone else's pleasure.

For example, in AMC's "Humans, " Gemma Chan plays Anita, a programmable robot that's sold to a white man, Joe. In the show, Joe uses Anita for sex. Written as his property and perceived as a literal object, she is given no capacity to consent to these acts.
These fantasies also circulate ideas about consent when it's not actually given, and there are serious historical and current implications.
The belief that women are entitlements, as "things" to earn or win through persistence and hard work, can be traced historically. For example, as Asia is framed as a series of conquests, Asian women are seen as "spoils of war" or prizes to be "claimed."

After the Phillipine-American War, after World War II and Japan's surrender, after the Korean War, after the Vietnam War, US occupation in East and Southeast Asian countries developed local sex industries and sex trafficking rings to serve soldiers.

Sexual access to women's bodies was rationalized as rightful "necessity'" for U.S. soldiers, establishing the assumption that Asian women are supposed to provide sexual services.

The legacy of sexual imperialism carries on today.

Also, the mail-order bride industry continues to exploit Asian women as commodities, as colonization and global capitalism have produced economic inequalities where some Asian women must sell themselves to men for marriage in order to garner financial support ― and intimate partner violence incidents are particularly high for women in these arrangements.

Tied to this ongoing practice of objectification and commodification via logics of conquest are compulsions to "tame" and "domesticate" people considered "exotic."

2. Tropes of Hypersexuality and Exotification Assume Rape to Be Impossible

As discussed above, fetishization of Asian women perceives our bodies as objects to be conquered and discovered traces back to colonial legacies that justified rape and enslavement.

The exotification of Asian women and the perpetual foreigner myth draw upon the notion of distance to depict Asian women as "less than" human curiosities.

Historically, "Yellow Peril" and other anti-Asian sentiments have created a perception of Asian women as immorally devious and have led to anti-immigration policies that target Asian women.

While on the surface being called "exotic" or told "You're all so beautiful" seems complimentary, exotifying Asian women reduces an entire group of women into sexual stereotypes - and also targets us in sexually violent ways.

Perceiving Asian women as exotic also projects a fantasy around how Asian women behave and act, including imagining us as always wanting sex or available for sex.
Myths that equate "exotic" with "promiscuous" minimize and normalize experiences of sexual assault.
The many problems with these narratives include the attempt to make Asian women believe that we are worth less and can only be given full humanity through a " white lover's touch."

Being constructed as sexual objects makes it impossible for Asian women to be seen as survivors of rape, and also collaborates with the seemingly contradictory trope of us as "childlike" and in need of protection.

This links to logics of rape culture such as "She was asking for it" or "I was doing her a favor."

3. Toxic Masculinity Has Violent Implications in Our Communities

One in ten Asian American women report violence from an intimate partner, and these numbers increase when detailed by ethnicity and nationality. 56 percent of Filipinas and 64 percent of Indian and Pakistani women had reported experiences of sexual violence.

Anna Bui. Annie Le. Felicia Lee. Tong Shao. Su Hsin. Vantha Tho.

These are just some of the names of Asian women who have been murdered by men - men who were former partners, men who felt scorned or rejected by women they felt entitled to, men who then thought murder was the appropriate response. These women were killed violently by men who took up logics of toxic masculinity.
These men, with such feelings of entitlement towards women and towards sex with women, are not anomalies.
Toxic masculinity is a concoction of entitlement that brings together white supremacy and rape culture - it is masculinity steeped in racism, classism, and heterosexism.

Reappropriate's Jenn Fang has written about this conflation of masculinity with misogyny ― and the problems with practicing "manhood" through the violent mistreatment of women. This response picks up a narrow vision of masculinity, where masculinity can only be defined and empowered by explicit heterosexuality.

4. The Model Minority Myth Erases and Silences Experiences of Sexual Violence

In addition to erasing inequities in material access, the model minority myth is a narrative that prevents racial justice.

As the model minority myth also links with other stereotypes of Asian Americans mashes together different ethnicities, nations, cultures, languages ― mashing together people - to produce the idea that "all Asians are the same." That we are interchangeable.
This erasure of individualism, in a society that prioritizes individualism as fundamental to humanity, is a form of dehumanization.
The model minority myth can be tied to tropes about Asian women being "obedient" and "passive" - that we should be "quiet" and "silent."

The myth also plays a large role in the erasure of sexual violence in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. 41-61 percent of Asian American women experience physical and/or sexual violence, but these incidents of assault go largely unreported.

In addition to erasing inequities in material access, the model minority myth is a narrative that prevents racial justice.

If we are supposed to be "models" of racial exceptionalism, how could we possibly face any problems such as violence? How dare we have feelings of pain and grief?

Legacies of white sexual imperialism continue to be taken up by white men as well as men of color ― and we must grapple with the ways gendered, racialized, and sexualized violence work in our communities.

Though they may seem like a harmless infatuation with Asian women and our bodies, fetishes of Asian women link to experiences of racist, sexual violence and have negative impacts on our physical safety and mental and emotional health.
This article was originally published at Everyday Feminism on January 2, 2017 and republished here with the author's consent.
If we are cute, fragile, delicate, then we must be in need of manly protection. Or if we are cold, heartless, compassionless dragon ladies, then we need to be "tamed."

Either way, we end up being denied agency over our own bodies, consent, and safety. These fetishes and stereotypes have had further serious and violent implications as they contribute to rape culture.

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How Rape Culture And Racism Combine To Hurt Asian Women

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When women are told, "You know you want it." When the U.S. elects as president a man who openly claims to grab women's genitals without their consent. When women experience street harassment on a daily basis. When survivors of rape are dismissed, disbelieved, and told they were " asking for it.

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Talks about fetish and how Military occupation supplies a means of working for desparate women

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Recently, a friend and I were talking about growing up Asian American in predominantly white neighborhoods and schools, and she told me that when she was in fifth grade, boys teased her on the playground by saying that she had a "sideways vagina."

This has happened to me, too - and I'm sure to so many other Asian girls.

Throughout my life, I've received unwanted comments and questions about my body, specifically my anatomy, including being harassed on the street with calls like, "Ni hao," "Konichiwa," "Are you Chinese, Japanese, or Korean," and recently, "Hi Ling Ling."

On top of that, in my dating history, I was expected to be more quiet and less assertive.

The hyper-sexualization and fetishization of East Asian women is problematic - I am not "lucky" that my race and gender is imagined as sexy and exotic, that Asian women "."

Or that, an image search of "Asian women" pulls up excessive pictures of women posing in lingerie.

Racial fetishes are about objectification, fetishizing an entire group of people - in this case Asian women, means reducing them down to stereotypes instead of recognizing their full personhood.

Beyond just personal preferences or " having a type," racial fetishes project desired personality and behavior onto an entire racial or ethnic group.

When my identity as an "Asian woman" becomes the only thing that's important to someone in an interaction, that's a problem .

So, where did the fetishization and objectification come from? How did Asian women get the hypersexualized stereotypes of being docile and submissive or being dangerous and seductive?

While today, some people might think of fetishes and sexual stereotypes as "not a big deal," the history behind these tropes is rooted in violence and war, which get oppressively reimagined by mainstream media and entertainment.

Below are five ways East Asian women became fetishized and how that fetishization horribly impacts our lives.

1. Mainstream Media Creates the Submissive 'Lotus Blossom' and Evil 'Dragon Lady' Stereotypes

"[S]mall, weak, submissive and erotically alluring...She's fun, you see, and so uncomplicated. She doesn't go to assertiveness-training classes, insist on being treated like a person, fret about career moves..." -Tony Rivers, "Oriental Girls", Gentleman's Quarterly, 1990

Growing up, Lucy Liu was one of the only East Asian women I saw on TV and in movies. It was her, the Yellow Power Ranger (Thuy Trang), and Mulan.

For me, Liu is badass - both for being one of the only Asian American actresses in mainstream Hollywood and also for playing roles that literally kick ass.

However, many of her roles throughout the 90s and early 2000s, such as Ling Woo on Ally McBeal or as O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill, were also ones that showed Asian women as beautifully evil, aggressive, and also mysterious .

Asian women are often stereotyped as either the dangerously cunning "Dragon Lady" that seduces White men, leading to their inevitable downfall, or as the submissive "Lotus Blossom."

Both are meant to be demeaning and demonizing.

While there are exceptions, for the most part, has created one dimensional, sexualized representations of Asian women that have affected the way they're perceived by others.

One of her most recognized characters was the demure, respectful Lotus Flower in The Toll of the Sea . The demure, subservient, and delicate "Lotus Blossom" stereotype is intended to cast Asian women as "less than," both in terms of race and gender.

These stereotypes are seriously harmful. In the US, of Asian women experience physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner during her lifetime.

Being docile is specifically about being deferent and obedient, especially to the authority of men.

As our race, gender, and sexuality become ruled by Western and male fantasy, in order to serve men sexually, Asian women must both be "feminine" and "heterosexual" and also either submissive and/or hypersexual.

These double stereotypes of "Lotus Blossom" and "Dragon Lady" reflect the ways that Asian women become transformed into either a sexual servant or embodied as a sexual adventure.

2. Labeling Products 'Oriental' Leads to the Objectification of East Asian Women as Exotic Commodities

"Oriental" was used as an adjective by "the West" to describe "the East." And now, it's often represented as anything with dragons, lotus blossoms, red lanterns, and other "mystical" symbols from the "Far East."

The historical and media image and idea of "Oriental" also ends up lumping together all "Asian women" as East Asian and also conflates Chinese, Japanese, and Korean identities.

The "Orientalizing" of Asian women is a historical process where race, gender, class, immigration status, and also empire all play a role.

Since trade routes that opened up in the 1200s , notably the Silk Road, White adventurers sought to find exotic goods in the "Far East" - not only spices and fabrics, but women as well. (Netflix's recent series Marco Polo retells this " White-guy-in-Asia " story.)

As seemingly faraway cultures and places begin being defined by objects and artifacts, these so-called exotic aesthetics end up getting imposed onto people and their physical appearance.

This shows up in everyday ways that men perceive sex with Asian women as something to collect. There's a scene in Wedding Crashers where Vince Vaughn screams, "That was my first Asian!" Sadly, that line is used often in real life.

These expectations and demands on our external bodies also end up getting internalized - my identity as both Asian and a woman is constantly under scrutiny.

3. Exclusive Immigration Policies Create Perception of Asian Women as 'Immoral'

Immigration policies affected the ways Asian women were perceived by White Americans.

Specific to the US, one example comes from Chinese American history. During the 1800s, most of Chinese people in the US were immigrant men working as low-cost laborers. The sexual interactions of Chinese immigrants were controlled by immigration laws and laws that prohibited interracial sexual relationships.

Many Chinese women who immigrated to the US around that time were women that were deceived and kidnapped or trafficked into serving this group of Chinese men.

Eventually, they also established White clientele, and racial stereotypes began to emerge that Chinese women were luring White men towards sin and expanded the trope of people in the sex industry as irresponsible and dangerous.

" Yellow Peril " anti-Chinese immigration sentiments also created the threatening perception of Asian women as "greedy, devious, and immoral ." The Page Act of 1875 prohibited "undesirable" immigrants from entering the US.

This practice was looked down upon by White Americans, adding to anti-Japanese sentiment at that time.

After World War II, Congress also passed the War Bride Act, where those serving abroad were allowed to bring Japanese and European wives home and Americans saw Japanese wives as virtuous homemakers.

Today, the fantasy of having an overseas Asian wife continues through the "mail order bride" industry, which continues to both commercialize women and put them in vulnerable positions. In this industry, women can literally be "returned and exchanged."

4. US Military Representations in Pop Culture Construct Asian Women as Subservient to White Men

" The Problem of Miss Saigon makes us believe that we are worth less, that it is only through the white lover's touch that we may be conferred a fuller humanity." -

While the "East meets West" narrative is centuries overdone, literary and film history plays a role in the construction of Asian women as subservient.

In 1887, Pierre Loti wrote the novel about a French officer going to Japan to find a "dainty" and "delicate" woman " not much bigger than a doll ."

This becomes the main basis for Puccini's 1904 opera Madame Butterfly. The gist is that an American soldier travels to Japan and takes on a Japanese wife.

He leaves her to return to legitimately marry a White American woman, and she ends up killing herself.

This storyline repeats itself in various films with settings across locations throughout Asia. Later, the 1989 musical Miss Saigon resets the narrative in Vietnam.

The problem with the Miss Saigon and Madame Butterfly storyline is that in these novels, plays, and films, Asian women from different places end up homogenized and literally depicted as ornamental objects created for the sole purpose of White men's pleasure.

Later films and novels like embellished the Western soldier seeks Asian bride narrative by adding a savior element -Asian women needed to be rescued and protected by White men.

This narrative is something that I've internalized. I've found myself wondering in previous relationships and never truly being able to articulate out loud: Are you just trying to experience what it's like being with an Asian woman? Are you just with me because I'm Asian?

5. War and Military Presence Produce Even More Sexual Violence
Military presence impacts local economies - for women who are poor, the sex industry offers an opportunity to make a living.
US military presence in Asia led to the creation of local sex industries and sex trafficking rings that would serve soldiers. Some of the first encounters soldiers ever had with Asian women were around the idea that these women were there to serve them sexually.

Although many women suffer horrible working conditions including assault and violence, institutions are more interested in turning women into commodities to serve military clientele then in the wellbeing of the women.

Also, thanks to Stanley Kubrick's the experiences of these woman have been reduced down to one line: "Me so horny. Me love you long time." Strangers will ask me on the street or in bars, " Will you love me long time? "

Wars against Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam have also created national imagery that gets represented in pop culture and then get internalized by any Americans who may not know any Asians or Asian Americans.

Asian nations and the people from them are perceived as both dangerous as well as desired objects of conquest.

The objectification and fetishization of Asian women comes out of devastating wars and exclusionary immigration practices that get re-transcribed by books, movies, and other mass-consumed media.

While some folks might think that these sexual stereotypes are a "compliment" or "positive," the ongoing violence perpetrated against Asian women as a direct result of these stereotypes get overlooked.

Objectification is about being seen as less than human. As unworthy of anything else but a singular use and function.

Asian and Asian American women continue to be objectified sexually through cultural consumption and misrepresentation in ways that also have negative day-to-day impacts, from commuting to dating.
Rachel Kuo is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism and a scholar and educator based in New York City. Her professional background is in designing curriculum and also communications strategy for social justice education initiatives. You can follow her on Twitter .

Filed Under: Tagged With: Articles, Gender, Race & Ethnicity, Sex Posts

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5 Ways 'Asian Woman Fetishes' Put Asian Women in Serious Danger - Everyday Feminism

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Recently, a friend and I were talking about growing up Asian American in predominantly white neighborhoods and schools, and she told me that when she was in fifth grade, boys teased her on the playground by saying that she had a "sideways vagina."

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Documentary on Child Prostitution in Philippines

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Documentary on Child Prostitution in Philippines

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The Raid : Alleged Underage Prostitution in Philippines

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Get this from a library! The Raid : Alleged Underage Prostitution in Philippines. [ABC News Productions.; Films for the Humanities & Sciences (Firm); Films Media Group.;] -- Girls as young as 14 are being bought and sold in overseas bars that are owned by Americans.

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shows how large the industry is in the Philippines and work force from the Philippines, also shows probable incentives and causes

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Sex trafficking in South Asia - ScienceDirect

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Economic and social inequalities and political conflicts have led to the movement of persons within each country and across the borders in South Asia. Globalization has encouraged free mobility of capital, technology, experts and sex tourism.

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US Dept of State 2016 Trafficking Report

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US Dept of State 2016 Trafficking Report

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PHILIPPINES: Tier 1

The Philippines is a source country and, to a lesser extent, a destination and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. An estimated 10 million Filipinos work abroad, and a significant number of these migrant workers are subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor-predominantly via debt bondage-in the fishing, shipping, construction, education, nursing, and agricultural industries, as well as in domestic work, janitorial service, and other hospitality-related jobs, particularly across the Middle East, Asia, and North America. Traffickers, typically in partnership with small local networks, engage in unscrupulous recruitment practices that leave migrant workers vulnerable to trafficking, such as charging excessive fees and confiscating identity documents. Traffickers use email and social media to fraudulently recruit Filipinos for overseas work. Illicit recruiters use student, intern, and exchange program visas to circumvent the Philippine government and destination countries' regulatory frameworks for foreign workers. Many victims experience physical and sexual abuse, threats, inhumane living conditions, non-payment of salaries, and withholding of travel and identity documents.

Forced labor and sex trafficking of men, women, and children within the country remains a significant problem. Women and children from indigenous families and remote areas of the Philippines are most vulnerable to sex trafficking and some are vulnerable to domestic servitude and other forms of forced labor. Men are subjected to forced labor and debt bondage in the agricultural, fishing, and maritime industries. Many people from impoverished families and conflict-areas in Mindanao, undocumented returnees, and internally displaced persons in typhoon-stricken communities are subjected to domestic servitude, forced begging, forced labor in small factories, and sex trafficking in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, central and northern Luzon, and urbanized areas in Mindanao. Trafficking also occurs in tourist destinations such as Boracay, Angeles City, Olongapo, Puerto Galera, and Surigao where there is a high demand for commercial sex acts. Child sex trafficking remains a pervasive problem, typically abetted by taxi drivers who have knowledge of clandestine locations. Very young Filipino children are coerced to perform sex acts for live internet broadcast to paying foreigners; this typically occurs in private residences or small internet cafés and is facilitated increasingly by victims' close family relatives. NGOs report greater numbers of child sex tourists in the Philippines, many of whom are nationals of Australia, Japan, the United States, and countries in Europe; Filipino men also purchase commercial sex acts from child trafficking victims. Organized crime syndicates allegedly transport sex trafficking victims from China through the Philippines en route to other countries. The UN reports armed militia groups operating in the Philippines, including the New People's Army, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Abu Sayyaf Group, and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, continue to recruit and use children, at times through force, for combat and noncombat roles.

Officials, including those in diplomatic missions, law enforcement agencies, and other government entities, allegedly have been complicit in trafficking or allowed traffickers to operate with impunity. Some corrupt officials, particularly those working in immigration, allegedly accept bribes to facilitate illegal departures for overseas workers, reduce trafficking charges, or overlook unscrupulous labor recruiters. Reports in previous years asserted police conduct indiscriminate or fake raids on commercial sex establishments to extort money from managers, clients, and victims. Some personnel working at Philippine embassies reportedly withhold back wages procured for their domestic workers, subject them to domestic servitude, or coerce sexual acts in exchange for government protection services.

The Government of the Philippines fully meets the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The government convicted 42 traffickers, including five for online child sex trafficking and two for forced labor. Although pervasive corruption undermined efforts to combat trafficking, the government convicted two immigration officers and charged five officials allegedly complicit in trafficking. In an effort to prevent trafficking of migrant workers, the government increased its funding for the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) to facilitate anti-trafficking prevention campaigns for migrant workers, and authorities expanded training and awareness events for government officials, prospective employees, and the general public, doubling the number of persons reached. Officials proactively identified trafficking victims exploited within the country and assisted roughly 1,500 during the reporting period; however, it did not identify any foreign victims. Although domestic protection for male victims remained limited, the government opened and fully funded a temporary shelter for male Filipino trafficking victims in Saudi Arabia. To reduce the demand for commercial sex acts, justice officials prosecuted eight cases against foreign child sex tourists during the reporting year.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE PHILIPPINES:

Increase the availability of shelter and protection resources that address the specific needs of trafficking victims, with a particular focus on male victims and mental health provisions; develop and implement programs aimed at reducing the demand for commercial sex acts, including child sex tourism and online child sexual exploitation; increase efforts to identify labor trafficking victims, especially children subjected to forced labor, including via training for Department of Labor and Employment inspectors on proactive identification mechanisms; increase efforts to investigate, prosecute, and convict labor traffickers who exploit victims within the country; increase efforts to investigate and prosecute government officials for trafficking and trafficking-related offenses; expand efforts to ensure victim-friendly criminal justice proceedings for victim witnesses, particularly child victims, to prevent re-traumatization from multiple interviews and protracted shelter stays throughout the duration of court cases; widely implement the continuous trial mechanism pilot program to increase the speed of trafficking prosecutions; expand prevention efforts against the recruitment and use of child soldiers and vigorously investigate any such allegations and hold accountable those who are involved; and broaden trainings for front-line officers on appropriate methods to assist children apprehended from armed groups.

PROSECUTION

The government continued vigorous law enforcement efforts. The Philippines prohibits sex and labor trafficking through its 2003 and 2012 anti-trafficking acts and prescribes penalties of six years' to life imprisonment plus fines up to five million pesos ($112,000), which are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. Philippine law defines purchasing commercial sex acts from a child as a trafficking offense. During the reporting period, police investigated 329 alleged trafficking cases, a steady increase from the 282 and 155 suspected cases it investigated in 2014 and 2013, respectively. The National Bureau of Investigation conducted 40 operations leading to the arrest of 151 suspected traffickers, and separately investigated 67 sex trafficking cases and four for forced labor. In 2015, the government prosecuted at least 569 alleged traffickers, compared with 595 during the previous year. Authorities convicted 42 traffickers during the reporting year, compared with 53 convictions in 2014; of these convictions, five were for online child sex trafficking and two for forced labor. Sentences for those convicted ranged from eight years' to life imprisonment, with most offenders sentenced to life imprisonment. The government did not take any law enforcement action to punish the recruitment and use of child soldiers as no cases were reported; reporting was inhibited by the ongoing insurgency in volatile areas where armed militias, which recruit and use child soldiers, operate. During the year, the Supreme Court employed the continuous trial system pilot project, which continued to expedite trafficking prosecutions; however, endemic inefficiencies, and in some cases corruption, in the judicial system left some cases pending prosecution. Courts resolved the cases of 17 of the 42 convicted traffickers within two years, which is significantly faster than other types of criminal cases. Prosecutions for labor trafficking remained low; law enforcement officials reported difficulties in securing forced labor convictions, sometimes due to misconceptions that this crime requires an element of movement to be tried under the anti-trafficking law.

The government continued to make strong efforts to provide anti-trafficking training to authorities. The Interagency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) conducted 36 trainings in 2015, reaching more than 1,000 government officials, including new investigators and prosecutors. IACAT also led and co-coordinated 280 anti-trafficking trainings, which reached 7,300 government personnel and more than 11,000 civil society attendees across the country, including students, hospitality staff, and bus and taxi drivers. In addition, Philippine regional police facilitated 24 specialized courses on cross-border trafficking issues with Malaysian royal police. Officials also hosted seminars in Cebu and Davao to enhance the capacity of respective law enforcement personnel. Philippine officials continued to cooperate with foreign governments to pursue international law enforcement action against suspected traffickers; officials initiated at least nine such investigations in 2015. During the reporting year, the government investigated 24 allegedly complicit immigration officers and convicted two; it sentenced one official to 15 years' imprisonment plus a fine of 500,000 pesos ($10,800). The government also issued administrative charges-including job dismissal-against five potentially complicit immigration officers; the remaining 17 cases are either pending, referred for additional investigation, or awaiting approval for criminal proceedings. Philippine officials dismissed for lack of merit and insufficient evidence two cases: a 2013 case of an embassy official in Kuwait who allegedly violated the Philippines' anti-trafficking law, and a 2014 case involving a Philippine diplomat and her spouse in Canada who allegedly compelled an individual into domestic servitude.

PROTECTION

The government sustained its proactive identification of victims and increased provision of protective services. Although comprehensive statistics for the total number of victims identified and assisted were unavailable, IACAT reported identifying at least 807 victims, mostly female and children. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) reported serving 1,465 trafficking victims, of whom 1,037 were female, compared with 1,395 victims in 2014. The government followed formal procedures to identify victims and refer them to official agencies or NGO facilities for care; it also continued to assist its nationals subjected to trafficking abroad. Philippine officials identified victims through rescue operations, border screenings, reports to embassies abroad, and calls to the national anti-trafficking help line, which led to assistance for 62 potential trafficking victims.

The government, through its recovery and reintegration program and in partnership with NGOs, provided victims with shelter, psycho-social support, medical services, legal assistance, and vocational training. It sustained an allocation of approximately 23 million pesos ($490,000) to implement this program. DSWD operated 44 residential care facilities, an increase from 26 in 2015, which delivered services to victims of trafficking and other related abuses; however, available services remained inadequate to address the specific needs of victims, particularly for mental health. The DSWD reported providing temporary shelter to 1,889 victims during the reporting period, an increase from 853 in 2015. An improvement for victims in 2015 saw adult victims residing in shelters being permitted to leave unchaperoned, provided there were no threats to their personal security or psychological care issues. Domestic protective services for male victims remained limited; however, during the reporting period Philippine officials opened and funded a temporary shelter for male Filipino trafficking victims in Saudi Arabia. The government provided an unknown funding amount to NGOs, which delivered the vast majority of specialized services to trafficking victims; however, the lack of long-term care, absence of mental health services, and familial involvement in facilitating exploitation left many victims vulnerable to re-trafficking.

Under its witness protection program, justice officials protected witnesses from reprisals by providing security, immunity from criminal prosecution, housing, livelihood and travel expenses, medical benefits, education, and vocational placement; however, victims were often interviewed multiple times, which resulted in lengthy shelter stays. During the year, civil society representatives observed judicial officials utilizing victim restitution provisions and awarding damages to victims; however, these monetary penalties imposed upon offenders often went unpaid due to perpetrators' financial incapacity and protracted court proceedings. NGOs confirmed government officials did not punish victims for unlawful acts committed as a result of being subjected to trafficking. While the government did not identify foreign victims in the Philippines during the year, it had long-term alternatives to deportation of victims to countries where victims may face hardship or retribution.

PREVENTION

The government increased its robust efforts to prevent trafficking. The government continued implementation of its 2012-2016 strategic plan to combat trafficking, and IACAT and other government anti-trafficking taskforces met regularly during the year to share data and coordinate interagency policies. IACAT increased funding from 200,000 pesos ($4,500) in 2014 to over 850,000 pesos ($18,200) in 2015 for the CFO to facilitate anti-trafficking prevention campaigns. Consequently, the CFO expanded its community education programs on trafficking and safe migration tactics across 24 provinces, which reached more than 6,300 participants, including prospective migrant workers; it conducted a similar campaign in Hong Kong for approximately 150 Filipino migrants employed there. The CFO also facilitated an awareness campaign in Cebu, focusing on cybercrime and online child sexual exploitation, and disseminated related informational materials to more than 60,000 local residents. During the reporting period, police led 38 awareness-raising programs for 1,500 participants on preventing exploitation of women and children, to include trafficking; they also produced and distributed thousands of flyers, posters, and manuals at the community level nationwide and hosted 28 television and social media engagements for the general public.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) conducted public seminars and community forums across the country on warning signs of illegal recruitment tactics and trafficking. POEA officials investigated 98 cases involving 231 complainants of illegal recruitment and an unknown number of trafficking victims in 2015, which resulted in the closure of 12 non-licensed establishments; officials referred 84 cases for criminal investigation proceedings, as compared with 124 the previous year, and reported six illegal recruitment convictions compared to eight in 2014. The Bureau of Immigration continued to screen for potential victims at airports and seaports, and officials issued amended guidelines on departure formalities for international-bound persons, which set clearer rules for inspections intended to prevent trafficking and other related offenses without deterring legal travelers. Despite significant local and foreign demand in the country's vast commercial sex trade, the government's efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts were negligible, and authorities reported no tangible efforts to reduce the demand for forced labor. Justice officials prosecuted 17 cases against six foreign child sex tourists during the reporting year; however, including previous years, 79 cases remain pending trial. The government conducted three monitoring, reporting, and response training events for 146 local service providers addressing child soldiering issues in Mindanao due to protracted armed conflict and high likelihood for the recruitment and use of child soldiers there; however, the government did not report assisting any demobilized child soldiers. Government military personnel disseminated information against child soldier recruitment in various provinces nationwide, but no law enforcement actions were taken to punish the recruitment and use of child soldiers as no cases were reported. The government provided anti-trafficking training to Philippine troops prior to their deployment abroad on international peacekeeping missions, and for its diplomatic personnel.

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The Philippines is a source country and, to a lesser extent, a destination and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor.