WHAT WOMEN WANT

Much ado about the differing tastes for the fairer sex has erupted on the so called Indonesian bloggersphere recently. It all started over a week ago when a Jakarta based columnist, I'm assuming rather naively, wrote on a blog post that his Indonesian "friend's view of a beautiful woman is that of a fair-skinned one, who has the look of a financially independent, educated, and classy lady" contrasting with "an Indonesian woman with a dark complexion, buck teeth, and a high forehead typically found among remote mountain villagers in Java" who "for an Asian man...surely look like maids" but are apparently what "foreign (white) men" are "attracted to".

The writer proceeded to, rather uncomfortably for the reader, explain that the reasons for these respective preferences are rooted in the pre Industrial Revolution and then elaborated on why Asian societies and Western men have these skin preferences in a style that was mildly reminiscent of Mein Kamf; when Adolf Hitler, in a similar vein, clinically explained his reasoning as to why an Aryan was superior to a person of another race.

And then it all kicked off on a variety of fronts involving UI students, indignant bules et al; discussing the possibility of cosmetic surgery for high foreheads, comments about rich people with bucked teeth, the merits of Ponds cream for making skin whiter, the deformed toes of Indonesian peasants which apparently can spread wider than normal due to centuries of working in rice fields (didn't know that!), the definite advantages of shagging pembantu type women and a ton of general malicious abuse...in short; a long and in parts; quite amusing thread, which is still going on.

But apart from the rather unflattering description of rural Javanese women, this guy is of course right about the general attitude to skin colour in Asia, but obviously not in his assumptions about the opposite sex preferences of the male species, of which he (I'm only guessing from the photo) is a member of. But we know all this; we've all seen those urban broads, getting out of a car or crossing the street and grabbing whatever they have in their hand at the time and frantically holding it up to their face to try and block out that evil sun or the guaranteed pleasure of having a swimming pool to yourself, apart from the brats and their salaried full time mothers (sorry, that's nannies), in an apartment or a hotel until dusk, when, like in Salem's Lot, the Mums emerge, confident that the months and accumulated expense of cosmetic skin treatment and usage of this Ponds stuff won't be destroyed by an unwelcome lash of those darkening ultra violet rays. On the other hand, note the success of franchises such as The Tanning Shop in countries like England, which do a roaring trade for those women with pale complexions (and beautiful elocution) typically found among remote villagers in Essex who strive to achieve that bronzed South Beach J Lo type look for dismal Friday nights in Romford.

But what the rather asinine article and its author confirmed was that Asian society always focuses solely on what men like. This I think is the real issue here because Asian societies tend to focus on the man's prospective on most things, and nobody discusses what kind of men, physically, Asian women like.

Traditionally, Indonesian women, for example, were supposed to be virgins on their wedding night, perhaps so that they didn't know if their husbands were any good in the sack or how their dick size measured up, and husbands are still vetted by their prospective wife's family after careful scrutiny of their family background and financial status and a women's opinion of their physical appearance and attractiveness is irrelevant. In the past (pre Fitness First); recent Indonesian brides were often complemented by their in laws on the fact that their husbands were getting fat after marriage because it meant that they were taking good care of their man in the kitchen but no one gave a shit what the poor Mrs thought about having this admirable expanding mid section going down on her in the bedroom.

So why didn't this guy and his coffee sipping friend in Plaza Indonesia ask why these said young Indonesian women like craggy faced, aged, pot bellied Western men, for example, if we're going to pick stereotypes. OK, the answer is, you may say, money or the perception of having some in a currency that gets a lot of rupiah back when it's changed over, but not all Indonesian women who have Western partners are those who have been picked up in the bars of Blok M, Jalan Jaksa or wherever. We've already been informed in lengthy and sometimes gruesome detail, courtesy of all the incessant blogging recently, what kind of women both Asian and Western men like and don't like but what I want to know is what kind of men, physically, do Indonesian women in like?