How Fetishization in Porn Reinforces Harmful Stereotypes
Consider Before Consuming
Fight the New Drug
4.7 • 762 Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussions of sexual assault, nonconsensual image sharing, racism, and fetishization. Listener discretion is advised.
Kaila Yu is the author of the new memoir, Fetishized. In this episode, Kaila opens up about her personal journey navigating fetishization, media exploitation, and a sexual assault that was recorded and shared without her consent. We explore how pornography and media have distorted perceptions of Asian women, stripping away individuality and fueling harmful stereotypes that echo far beyond the screen. Kaila’s story highlights both the personal toll of these narratives and the urgent need to challenge them.
Episode Resources:
- Kaila's Book: Fetishized
- Kaila's Instagram: @Kailayu
- Article: 6 Marginalized & Vulnerable Groups of People Porn Fetishizes
- Podcast: Consider Before Consuming Ep. 125: Melanie Thompson
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In today's episode of Consider Before Consuming, we're joined by Kyla Yu, author of the new memoir, Fetishized. |
| 0:18.3 | Kyla shares her powerful story of surviving exploitation, |
| 0:21.5 | navigating the weight of fetishization, |
| 0:23.5 | and confronting how pornography and media |
| 0:25.2 | have reinforced damaging stereotypes about Asian women. |
| 0:28.5 | She takes us through her journey of grappling with identity, |
| 0:31.2 | reclaiming her voice, |
| 0:32.7 | and untangling the ways cultural narratives and porn tropes |
| 0:35.6 | shaped how she and others saw her. |
| 0:37.6 | With that, let's jump into the conversation. |
| 0:40.0 | We hope you enjoy this episode of Consider Before Consuming. |
| 0:45.1 | Kyla, thank you so much for being here with us today on Consider Before Consuming. |
| 0:49.4 | We're here today to talk about your new book, fetishized, and hear a little bit about your story. And I'm so |
| 0:56.1 | grateful for this opportunity to get to speak with you today and share the message that you're |
| 1:00.0 | sharing. So for any of our listeners who might not be familiar with you yet, can you start |
| 1:05.2 | by sharing a little bit about yourself and the work that you do? Yeah, I'm an author and a writer, |
| 1:13.5 | and my book fetishized is about the fetishization of Asian women and kind of my experiences with it. I worked as a pen-up model |
| 1:19.6 | in my early 20s and got into some dangerous situations. And then the book also covers, like, |
| 1:29.0 | media that influenced me during the book also covers, like, media that, um, |
| 1:36.0 | influenced me during the time, such as like memoirs of a geisha and Fast and Furious and the Harris Yucca girls and, um, Austin Powers. That turned out to be pretty fetishy now that we look |
| 1:41.5 | back on it. Yeah. Thank you. This, um. This book is so, it's so powerful and so important |
| 1:48.4 | and so needed. Your book was just recently released on August 19th. What made you decide that now is |
... |
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