Keep in mind that at some point in American history (at the very least), it wasn’t uncommon for Asian men to marry white women (it was actually common practise before) along with sexualised Asian male leads (most notably Sessue Hayakawa) and interestingly, the same can be said of Ashkenazi Jews in Nazi Germany (especially whenever they’re portrayed as preying on Gentile women). That too wasn’t any better before however to better get the sentiment as it was, there is a growing number of non-Chinese women (Ugandan, Russian and Ukrainian) marrying Chinese men and Western women being infatuated with Balinese men.
As well as female fans of K-Pop and J-Pop, especially outside of Asia. I suspect at least in America it’s not known how and when did Asian men start getting emasculated. Whilst the lusty, sexualised Asian man cliche still thrives in Bali (and to some extent, Uganda), I also suspect it’s partly got to do with something like WWII making it easy for American soldiers to exoticise Asian women a lot more. Even if that may’ve existed before and conversely speaking, at least in some cases Thai women were actually historically considered masculine and ugly.
Especially when much of Thailand was still highly agricultural whilst the West was increasingly industrialised that in contrast to dainty, proper white women Thai women at the time seemed repulsively androgynous. It took some decades to have this changed with Thai women being increasingly pedestalised at the expense of white women. This too likely was similar for Asian men being made undesirable never mind the desirable Asian man cliche lives on with Russian women marrying Chinese men and Australian women lusting after Balinese men.
fynm 