Apparently, there are still Western men who believe that the East is an obliging seductress, mass producing an endless line of voluptuous women, whose laconic sexual pliancy is only exceeded by their desire to serve. This, according to Sheridan Prasso's new book, is a delusion that many Asian women are happy to cater to.
Prasso's observations are unsparing, but for anyone who has witnessed the transactions that take place between Western men and Eastern women in cities like Bangkok, even the holy city of Lhasa, will know they are wickedly accurate. On the topic of the hordes of middle-aged Western men who haunt the bars, brothels and matchmaking agencies of Asia, she concludes, " . . . any man can experience feeling attractive again - even loved. Old, fat, or ugly by Western standards, it doesn't matter. Anyone can be the Alpha Male and Lord Jim."
In the distorting mirror of Asian mystique, reserve can be interpreted as weakness, Asian women quickly characterized as submissive, obedient, obliging; Asian men emasculated. Such largely Western fantasies of the Orient are "antiquated, perhaps, but still shockingly influential."