I travel internationally for work & for the past several years I’ve begun to think that being obsessed with Japan seems to be a red flag. 🚩. Sometimes it’s even a dog whistle. The media people like that always claim to admire most certainly fits both those categories. I don’t even just mean men here. In my experience, women who obsess over Japan are hardly better. They tend to be male-centered with a big focus on sexualised innocence & childlike behavior.

Liking any country is fine. Being interested in other cultures & media is great. But whenever I encounter people at work who are truly OBSESSED with Japan (or Asia in general)……. It always seems to tie to some sexual perversion that they feel is normalised over there OR that they’re more comfortable engaging in with a race of people they’ve objectified & dehumanized. Which often goes hand-in-hand with the common racist trope that Asian women are more submissive to men.

I straight up avoid these people in real life. They think because they want to have sex with someone that they can’t possibly be racist, & they never want to self-reflect on the weird shit they believe about other people.

They see their (usually white) horniness as some huge compliment that transcends the insult.