You might question "What kind of perverted creep would write this column?" And rightly so. That's how you've been conditioned to think in America. In this country, the entertainment industry has taught us certain racial stereotypes, but our collective psyche is conflicted because it has been raised to believe that such racial stereotyping is offensive.
According to The Asian Mystique, by Sheridan Prasso, in Okinawa, Japan, teenage girls come from miles around for the chance to sneak a peak at -- and have sex with -- the black-American marines at Camp Butler. They are known as koku-ju, "black-(loving) girls," a subset of the ame-ju, "American-(loving) girls." They get surgical implants in their breasts and buttocks. They go to tanning salons, watch MTV to learn dance moves, adorn themselves with an abundance of bling-bling and for a final touch, cornrow their hair Snoop Dog-style. Racial fetish encompasses their entire being.
Images from the American entertainment industry consistently show black men gallivanting with buxom black women. The girls in Okinawa understand this racial preference and capitalize on it to satisfy their own lustful intentions. Why are they attracted to black Americans? Could their skin color make them appear more exotic than Japanese men? Perhaps their stature makes them appear more manly? Maybe the Japanese girls are aroused by the prospect of encountering men with the largest average penis size (according to published research at UC Santa Barbara). Or they might want the bling-bling lifestyle that is increasingly associated with the black American cultural stereotype, thus avoiding the perceived trailer-park lifestyle of white America.
Whatever the case, the girls in Okinawa are not alone in their quest to pair themselves with culturally atypical mates. Furthermore, they are not alone in their interpretations of stereotypes motivated by the entertainment industry.
A psychological study that appeared in the May edition of New Scientist magazine sheds light on mental responses to racial preferences. When completing a matching task with images of black faces, white and black people had increased activity in an area of the brain called the amygdala, which responds to fearful or threatening situations. The amygdala, however, also responds to novelty. It's possible that the spike in amygdala activity in whites at the sight of a black face could be the unconscious reaction to seeing an unfamiliar, or "outgroup," face.
Study leader Matthew Lieberman of the University of California, Los Angeles, said he believes that "the results are very specific to being raised in this society, where the portrayal of blacks is not very positive, on average. It suggests that those cultural messages are not harmless."
Novelty, which in this case involves seeing an outgroup face, is the basis of racial fetish. To fully understand the novelty factor, Lieberman and his colleagues used a functional MRI scanner to conduct a similar experiment with 11 white and eight black Americans. According to New Scientist, each participant completed three matching tasks; a visual task in which they had to match the race of a target photo to one of two comparison photos; a verbal task in which they had to match a target photo to either the words "African American" or "Caucasian American" and a control test in which they matched geometrical shapes.
Both black and white people showed increased amygdala activity when visually matching black target photos. White target faces produced no such brain activity. Because black faces are presumed not to be "novel" to black subjects, Lieberman concluded they must have learned, through the entertainment industry and cultural cues, to associate black people with fear.
"Measuring one's experience rather than the color of their skin will probably get us closer to understanding what an amygdala response to an outgroup face means," said Paul Whalen, a neuroscientist and amygdala expert at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
In Sheridan's book, the girls in Okinawa have a positive novelty response in relation to the black men, whereas Americans in Lieberman's study did not. The negative response in the study is the result of societal repression of such novelty responses. Their cultural perception of the black men is one of manliness and is much different from the emasculated perception they have of Japanese men. America's melting pot has morphed into a melting crater. By being exposed to so many cultures, racial differences and stereotypes are magnified. Even as the eroticism of exoticism becomes increasingly more mainstream, novelty will continue to elicit special responses in the human brain. Experiences with other cultures will trigger a greater number of amygdala responses and perhaps even more fetishes. As long as America becomes increasingly diversified, racial fetishes are here to stay.
Interestingly, when the subjects in the study performed the verbal matching tasks, the race-biased amygdala effect disappeared. The scans showed that when word processing, areas of the brain involved in fighting impulses or inhibitory control took over.
"The moment you start thinking about race in words, you know you're thinking about it and can make decisions," Lieberman claimed. "In general, putting your feelings into words seems to regulate or dampen those feelings."
While talking about race can be emotionally therapeutic, it is virtually impossible to convince people that fetishes are normal in American society. In Japan, fetishes have become less controversial and offensive. Magazines are devoted to preparing the koku-ju for their sexual quests. America needs a media and entertainment industry that is more responsive to the interests of interracial couples and that focuses more on the beauty of all races. Our generation is likely to see an explosion in interracial marriage rates, as research of the amygdala will lead to the collapse of the racial fetish taboo.
Lieberman's amygdala study suggests that trying to rationalize lust and fetish is unnatural. Racial fetishes -- positive racial preferences colored by societal perception -- are not harmful. They're only natural in an entertainment-driven culture. Our society is evolving around us, and it's time to embrace those changes. Literally.
Ryan can be reached at ryanmcelveen@cavalierdaily.com
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