Why I Wouldn’t Marry a Native Asian Woman

In this essay it will quickly become obvious that I am speaking about my own needs and what I wish to avoid, and that each person reading this—needless to say—will consider things important that I do not, and will place little or no importance on things that matter greatly to me. It also needs to be said that I write not as a thirty-year-old Contra Jayson or someone similar, but as someone much older who has only had serious relationships with Caucasian women in the U.S. Therefore, there are obviously things that I cannot know about Thai or other Asian women, and I could be wrong about some of my inferences and conclusions, which are based on readings, numerous chats with expats involved with or married to women born in Asia, and a good deal of travel in Southeast Asia in the last six years. As a final reassuring note of sorts to those who have quite different temperaments and needs than I do and might be quick to decry my criteria, I’d guess that fewer than five percent of American or Australian or British or European men, and irrespective of age, would line up their priorities as I do.

Among Asian women I would have the least interest in are those who are often described as hi-so or have anything like a strong sense of class and privilege, what is often referred to as entitlement. I very much dislike being around or with people who make judgments along class lines, who are eager to put themselves into a particular class of people and make judgments, often quite explicitly, about the race, class, color, or social status of those around them. So, for example, hi-so women with university degrees would hold no interest whatsoever for me if they look down on other Thai because of their darker skin color, or because they come from Isaan, or because their parents were poor rice farmers, or because the hi-so women are eager to define their lives in terms of people who are thought to be socially important and have money and influence. In other words, all those Thai women that are difficult to get access to—not because of age differences, but because they belong to the “better” classes of Thai society, and know it and want it known—would be of no interest to me whatsoever. I would care not in the least that they are, for example, strikingly beautiful—light skin, tall, fine features—and know how to dress tastefully and with unusual flair.

Which brings me to the issue of physical beauty, a point hammered relentless by men everywhere, and by Contra Jayson in his recent piece (18/10/08). I, of course, am no different--up to a point. I like young women, thin women, women with pleasant features and good teeth and good hygiene habits—in general women who smell good and are pleasant to look at. With a few exceptions, the women I would most seek out anywhere would not be the ones through sixes, or the nines and tens, but rather the sevens and eights. The first category includes too many women that I would, in my mind, see as unattractive or ugly. The nines and tens are, with rare exception, conscious of their attractiveness, exploit it and use it to advantage as much as they can, and very often—precisely because they are so conscious of their physical beauty—they prove to be average to poor bed partners. So again, and for a somewhat different reason, I would have little or no interest in the great “beauties” of Thailand or Indonesia or Vietnam or other Southeast Asian countries.

Like all men, I would want a woman around me who is kind and considerate and can see beyond her own nose, to the concerns and needs and others. Although there are plenty of exceptions, I’d venture that these traits would be more commonly found among women who rate as one through six or seven, than among the nines and tens; and more commonly among those who don’t see themselves as superior by virtue of birth, family wealth, or any other measure of entitlement. People who see themselves as privileged tend to feed off and reinforce that image.

I have another requirement for someone I want to spend serious time with, and from all I have heard and read and discovered it is a trait much more difficult to find in the Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, than in countries like the U.S., Canada, Australia, England and the European countries. And that’s the trait of being curious, of wanting to learn, of understanding the value of ideas and debate, of appreciating the value of books. There are minimum requirements, of course, when it comes to formal education. For it is simply impossible to discuss a great range of ideas and what is going on in the world if you only have a sixth or eighth grade education, and even more than this doesn’t count for much if obtained in a Third World country where independent thinking and analytical skills are given short shrift or ignored altogether. So by these criteria, and quite apart from what the women do—hooking to make money, for example—all but a tiny fraction of the women who come from Isaan would not meet my minimal criteria for a mate or relationship of any duration. But, alas, I have met hardly anyone in Thailand or other parts of Southeast Asia who speaks of more than a tiny and elusive handful of women who have the traits I have briefly described and need in my life. Thus by yet another criterion, then, all the great inaccessible “beauties” of Thailand that Contra Jayson describes as being off-limits to foreigners (forget his claim—basically fair—that the overwhelming number of foreigners in Thailand are not only not representative of the populations from which they come, but that they also tend to be the scummy core of Western countries) would hold little or no interest for me, even if not self-conscious about social class, and even if not racists, and even if not constantly drawing attention to their lighter skin by way of talking about someone else’s darker skin color.

It is, I think, fairly clear that in my case I probably need not go any further to make the point that while there are no doubt Thai women who would slip through the net of the criteria I have thus far put on the table, there aren’t many. Precious few, in fact. And there are even fewer when I add in other criteria.

I have no interest in finding myself supporting a wife or mate’s close family or somewhat more distant relatives. If any woman’s primary loyalty is to her family and not to me, or if she insists on financially supporting them at any level with our resources, including any money she makes on her own when living with me, then no matter how well she stacks up in terms of physical beauty, and intelligence, and warmth, and sexual prowess, I want nothing to do with her romantically. To put the matter a little differently, I would not allow either my mother or father to live with me and a mate or wife, and I would not permit either a mate or wife’s father or mother to live with us. Nor, of course, would I dream of permitting any other close or more distant relatives to live with us, including blood brothers or sisters. On the whole, Asians feel much more strongly about providing this kind of support to parents and siblings—very notably among Filipinas—and while I can appreciate the value and its cultural roots, it is a value I do not share and have no interest in acquiring under any circumstances. I simply value my freedom—freedom in my own house—far too much to take in and support any blood kin.

Yet another trait for which I have close to zero tolerance is that of jealousy and lack of privacy, a demand by any woman that she know all about my life and what I do, and insists on my not only accounting for my time when I am away from her but insists on putting limits on who I talk to and who I eat with and who I spend time with when I am not with her. I understand the roots of her concerns, and I also understand that the overwhelming majority of men I have ever known put up with such jealousies and intrusions. But all this is for others, not for me.

I cannot fail to mention the way so many Asians routinely deal with one another on matters concerning what might broadly be called “truth.” Everyone lies, but because of the enormous value placed on face in Asian societies, lying is so pervasive compared to what one finds in the West that it is not just a difference in degree but in kind. No doubt many Westerners who have married Thai women have found a way to deal with all this blatant lying and dissimulation. I could not and would not.

Where does all this leave me? Well, exactly, I think, where the title of this essay suggests I am. Put quite simply, there are too many cultural differences between native Asians (and it might well be the same with second- and third-generation Asians in the West for all I know) and my own values to want to get seriously involved with any of them. This, I should note and stress, is not a value judgment about what tens of thousands of Westerners have concluded or done by way of getting romantically involved, and married, to Asian women. It is merely a bald statement about my own values, what is important to me.

There are other issues that might be addressed. One is that of whether or not someone with my stringent set of criteria could ever enjoy Asian woman. Most certainly: as friends, as lovers, in short- to medium-term non-binding relationships. There is an awful lot to be said in favor of Asian women, and not least their warmth—irrespective of whether or not genuine. But however long the list of favorable traits they may possess, for men like me, and I suspect a great many mongers and non-mongers alike from the West, the costs of a marriage or something similar to a native Asian woman are higher, and perhaps far higher than the benefits. And, as I’ve noted, these costs are not attenuated by all the “desirable” women to which someone like Contra Jayson perhaps rightly claims foreigners do not have access; quite the contrary, these women, for men like me, have traits that are at least as debilitating as all those undesirable traits that have so often, and endlessly, been noted about that vast dark and poor army of Thai hookers who come from Isaan.

Can I understand why so many middle-aged men from the West, some of whom no doubt have at one time have had standards as high as I profess for myself, have married Thai and Filipina women? I certainly can. Who, in the approaching winter of his life, and a life marred by bad marriages and numerous disappointments, wouldn’t want to put aside all kinds of values to be daily ministered to by a young and attractive woman, one twenty, or thirty, or even forty years his junior? This certainly seems more desirable than hooking up with a fifty- or sixty-year-old fat Western woman with a couple of marriages behind her and a voracious materialistic appetite and more twisted mental baggage brought through the front door than anyone cares to contemplate. What sane man, unless strapped with fears about what neighbors and friends and others will say, does not want to have sex with and sleep with and gaze at—forget her intelligence!—someone who is by every measure young? She might have a Thai boyfriend or husband and be looking for ways to poison or shoot you when she’s not robbing you blind, but why worry when the Grim Reaper may be two blocks away but you know you’re going to enjoy at least one good shag in the block before you meet him.