Heaven forbid someone be attracted to a member of a different race.

That’s okay, but when it’s quite clearly fetishization, it’s shallow and dehumanizing.

How does one tell the difference between someone who’s legitimately more attracted versus someone fetishizing them?

I’m trying to answer honestly and I don’t know how to explain this through the internet. You’re not the only person whose asked this. And Ive explained this to a personal friend (who is white) why his comments weren’t flirting, but really creepy. So I hope this provide some clarity.

There’s just cues that the person drops that are clear indicators that the person is a asiaphile at the creepiest level.

I work in tech, I’m a POC, I have lots of friends and family who are also POC, and we share things. We’ve all had some experience where we’re in a room and some creepy (can be male or female) person just hits those notes. Where they see me, and rather talk about me as a person, go straight into my skin color, family background, ethnicity, how I look like thirst-trap person that they jerk off too, etc.

Is it bad to be someone’s fetish? Depends on how lonely/horny you are. Often, it’s creepy. Because they don’t see you as a person but rather as a object. That’s just me. Maybe both parties like being each other’s fetish - mutual fetishism. I dunno.

Maybe Ask your friend group/circle of people. Like when you ask women if they can spot a creep, and they point out very specific elements that separately, are meaningless. But when the creep hits all those targets, it’s a sign to leave the room.

Also, it depends on a lot of things. Your party of the world might have different takes on what is creepy fetishism. And as an American, I can’t speak for that side of things.

This is one of those things that’s really hard to explain to anyone that isn’t a minority, but I think you did a really good job conveying the nuance of it. I, as a white man, would likely never know about this side of human interactions if I wasn’t gay. And it’s not just with people fetishizing you. People will be similarly underhanded with their hatefulness too. People do these little micro-expressions that, when looked at as one odd expression, can be explained away. But, when you are the person these expressions are regularly directed towards, and it’s the same person consistently being weird towards you, you start to see trends. Sometimes you can pickup on these trends right away, with new people. Because it’s a fully intuition-based thing rooted in years of spotting these trends, it can be hard even explaining it to ourselves sometimes… Like, “why am I getting a weird vibe from this person?”. Then they say one of the common things these people say and you’re like “ooooohhhh… Next!” Lol.