On Sex Trafficking

The compound of Canadian academics where I live is full of Filipinas, Japanese, Koreans, and Thais. All wives of the male professors. Few single Western men seem to be able to return from a spell in the Far East without a wife. East Asian women seem to be becoming every North American man’s dream. And this seems to go especially for the best educated men.

And the Canadian women, ask why. At least they did recently, on Dave’s ESL Café.

Their explanations are, of course, the inevitable feminist ones. Asian women are stupid—that one came up pretty fast. “most of the ones that I've met don't have the brains God gave a chicken.”

They are too poor to have an alternative; they marry for the money. It’s all a “desire to escape from poverty.” They “trade ‘affection’ for your being a cash-cow for them.” They are “prostituting” themselves.

They are escaping from a culture that is prejudiced against women: “ingrained mistreatment by their own men.”

And the men? “A lot of guys, unfortunately, just like a girl they can feel superior to.” They “can’t handle a real woman.”

The Canadian Council on the Status of Women has even actually funded a study that declares all interracial marriages “sex trafficking.” Your tax dollars at work.

The racism as well as the sexism of such responses is almost hard to credit. The notion that only Westerners can be “real women” is an example. And the comment about “their own” men, as if there is something intrinsically wrong with marrying someone of a different race. And how about that assumption that Asians just aren’t as bright as Canadians?

But these theories can also be disproved in detail. Asian women are stupid? Sad to say, for whatever reason, Japanese score higher on IQ tests than any other nationality. Chinese and Koreans also score higher than Canadians, on average. So who has the right to call them “stupid as a chicken,” even if this weren’t intrinsically offensive and racist? The more reasonable assumption is that they are smarter in their approach to the mating game than the Western women. That would explain how they manage to snag so many academics, rather desirable husbands, all else being equal, in the general run of things. Secure job, good pay, prestige.

Too poor to have an alternative? That really doesn’t explain why Japanese women are just as eager as Filipinas to marry a Westerner. Japanese, after all, have a higher standard of living than Canadians do.

A culture that is prejudiced against women? In fact, in the Philippines, women make more on average than men. This is the very indicator used in Canada to “prove” that women are discriminated against. If that logic holds, it must also be true that it is men who are discriminated against in the Philippines.

In the Third World, polls also show that women are in general more satisfied with their life, are happier, than men. This too argues that any discrimination works the other way.

In any case, if essentially all other cultures are held to be more prejudiced against women than Western culture, which is also terribly prejudiced against women, where does that leave us? Occam’s Razor suggests that this means the Western culture is not, in fact, prejudiced against women at all. It seems terribly improbable that male conspiracies in all places and at all times would be successful in seizing oppressive social control. And if they really were able to do this, isn’t this overwhelming prima facie evidence that they really are superior?

As for the men marrying Asian to feel superior to them, this premise is of course based on racism—the assumption that everyone would consider an Asian inferior to a Westerner. Very offensive. It also requires the unlikely assumption that the Asian partner would buy into this premise.

So what is the real reason Western men are attracted to Asian women? Simple. The average Western woman quite openly hates and despises men in general. The average Asian woman actually seems to feel some affection for men as a class.

Love or abuse—which would you choose?

Note that it is the best and brightest among the Western men, not the poor and uneducated, who seem to have been marrying out. The attraction for Asian women can be simply that—good husbands, regardless of race. Scholars and gentlemen.

And yes, I have an Asian wife. My wish for my brothers back in Canada is that they all could have the same.