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Asian Men: Physical Flirting with Asian Women

Written by Asian Rake on October 21, 2008
Is there a difference between physical flirting with Asian girls and Western girls? The Asian Rake gives the scoop.




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Dr. Asian Rake is a dating consultant and a full-time professor at a top research university. Currently based in Singapore, he guides select clients to improve their lifestyles. To learn more about him and his services and products, visit www.asianrake.com.



I've been asked repeatedly from many different people whether and how flirting with "Asian women" is different from flirting with "Western women."

I've resisted answering this question because I detest stereotyping. And any generalizations about two billion women will no doubt lead to useless and harmful caricatures.

But I know the questions will just keep coming. So here goes. I will try to be as careful as possible.

At the risk of greatly oversimplifying, let us say that, for various reasons and in diverse ways, there is a common conservatism in Asian societies and that this Asian social conservatism is in stark contrast to the liberal, hook-up cultures of the "the West," by which I mean the Americas, Australia, the UK, and Europe.

My topic for this column concerns the role of physical touch when dealing with Asian women.

Physical touch is important to flirting because, generally speaking, you want to have a girl accepting your physical presence and contact as early as possible. A lot of this depends on your own comfort level with touching other people, especially women to whom you are sexually attracted. But sometimes, cultural factors come into play.

The polite zone and the social norms regarding physical touch between strangers can vary greatly among different societies. What is effective in Latin America may get you rejected immediately in some parts of East Asia.

So let's look more closely at the situation in Asia.

In interacting with Asian women in Asia, you should be aware that the social norms differ greatly from those in the West.

The reality is that most women are somewhere along a continuum between extreme social conservatism, which is more prevalent in "Asia," and extreme sexual liberalism, which is more common in "the West."

The more socially conservative a girl is, the less comfortable she will be with public displays of physical affection or sexuality.

Given that "Asian" societies are generally more socially conservative than "Western" ones, we can conclude that the more "Asian" a girl is, the more uncomfortable she will be with your physical advances in public.

The converse is also true.

The more "Western" an Asian girl is, the more accustomed she will be to your physical advances in public. For example, a thoroughly Americanized girl, whether she is of Asian descent or not, will expect and be more comfortable with public touching. Touch early and often.

Side Note: As a rule of thumb and a quick reference, you can often gauge how "Asian" a second-generation immigrant is by how fluent she is in her heritage language. This isn't always the case, and there are other ways of measuring, but this is a good guide.

Notice that all of this caution about physical touching applies only to interactions in public. It's really about respecting and observing social norms and realizing that the girl will feel constrained by whatever social pressures exist in her culture.

Why trigger unnecessary social resistance? Make it easier on yourself and her by allowing her to appear as a lady in public. Of course, as woman everywhere in the world, she desires to be a vixen in the bedroom.

The issue is her image in public. A lot of this is tied to the concepts of "face" and "shame." Save yourself the trouble and lay off aggressive physical advances.

Whereas in the West, upon meeting a new girl, you can often place your hand on the small of her back and leave it there (recall the humorous scene in "Hitch" about how high to place your hand), in Asia, you are better off with lighter and briefer amounts of physical touching in public.

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