Have you ever had a foreign girlfriend? What country was (is) she from? What did you like and dislike about her? Have you ever wanted to date a girl (woman) from another country (let's assume she would be living in your country already)? What country would that be and why? by Ricky_Ticky in Lesbians

[–]lapislezzie 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Are you European? Because I can see how this would not be offensive from a European perspective, where countries are small and have distinct cultures but there's a lot of free movement between the countries so you often do run into the situation where you're dating someone from a different country and navigating culture quirks, and would want to invite others to share their similar experiences.

But to a non-white foreigner in the US, this question immediately hits as tokenizing and offensive if you set the same question here. There's a dehumanizing racial element to ascribing characteristics to non-white foreigners in the US that blonde foreigners in Germany will not experience. Like, it was cute when I was in London and a white British guy hit on my white American friend by saying she is so friendly and talks like the women in films. But it is skin-crawling when a white American approaches me and tells me I'm 'so cute' and sound like whatever the hell anime character they probably have printed on their body pillow and says they "always wanted to date a girl from an Asian country." Like I'm some exotic new flavor of kitkat they want to sample, and like the different countries in Asia or the millions of women from dozens of distinct cultures within my country are all interchangeable. (I might be especially sensitive to this because there are JUST SO MANY weirdos that have a thing for Asian women it's exhausting. And they ALL think they're not one of the weird ones.)

It's not like it's inherently racist or insensitive to talk about how people from different cultures have different norms and expectations or can introduce you to new perspectives. That's a great conversation to have. Sexualizing ethnic stereotypes and talking about dating foreigners like you're collecting pokemon is not that conversation though, and at least a few people ITT don't seem to understand that difference.