Okay, so I really want to talk about something I just noticed in the AMBW community. I’ve been following this community for a few years for my own reasons, but there’s something I only just noticed about it. For those who are unaware, A.M.B.W stands for “Asian man black woman”. Essentially it’s a word to refer to any couples where the man is of Asian heritage and the woman is black. Now ‘black’ can refer to many different people, but 9 times out of 10, when referred to by a couple who lives in the U.S., they mean an African American woman. But it could also be an African woman, a Haitian woman, a Jamaican woman, etc. If you still aren’t sure, try googling AMBW and you should get a good amount of results to come up.

So if you’ve already got that info, or you did your google search, has anyone noticed that the vast majority AMBW couples are made of a pale skinned Asian man and a dark skinned black woman? I feel like rarely ever see these couples with a light skinned black woman, though I admit I’ve seen a few out there. However, I don’t think I’ve EVER seen an AMBW couple with a dark skinned Asian man and it’s honestly kind of shocked me. And when I say “dark skinned”, I don’t mean ‘slightly darker than pale’, I mean straight up brown. I don’t think it should be ignored that a huge chunk of people who claim they are attracted to Asian people really mean they are attracted to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people. MAYBE they’ll throw in Thai, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese people. But almost never do these people express an attraction to Indians, Filipinos, or any ‘brown’, Southeast Asians.

And the reason this is so odd to me is because one reason I hear for people being fans of this pairing is that people find it unexpected that a (pale skinned) Asian man would go for a dark woman, and/or that a black woman would go for a pale male. Like I said, when many western people think ‘Asian’ they think of pale skinned East Asians. And it is factual that east Asians and those of east Asian background do tend to marry other pale skinned east Asians. So perhaps it looks ‘interesting’ to see a light skinned Asian guy with a dark skinned black woman. Okay, on that I can agree.

And another reason people, mainly black women, tend to like this pairing is because having a person who is not typically expected to be attracted to dark skin actually choose that type of person as their love interest feels validating. It’s like ‘proof’ that black is beautiful and all that jazz, because allegedly there are 'studies' out there insinuating that black women are undesirable. (By the way, I think many of these 'studies' are flawed, but many people like to bring them up in these circles). So the mindset becomes, “Wow even (pale skinned) Asian men can find us beautiful, that's awesome”. [Note: I’m not saying this out of nowhere, I’ve seen these sentiments from many people (NOT ALL) in that community.] That said, I still find it crazy that in almost every instance of AMBW that I see, this idea of black being beautiful and desired is ONLY represented in the case of the woman. Dark skinned Asian men are almost never the A.M. in AMBW. Now with us black women having such a range of skin tones, it isn’t too too hard to find a lighter skinned black woman in an AMBW couple. I personally see mainly darker skinned woman, but it is a better balance.

But like I said, I really NEVER see darker skinned southeast Asian men like Filipinos or Indians in this pairing. If I google AMBW right now, I’m going to see dark skinned black women, with light skinned Chinese or Korean men in 90% of the pictures. If I go to look for AMBW fanart, it’s going to be dark skinned women and light skinned men. If I go to youtube, I’m going to primarily see videos featuring dark skinned women and light skinned Chinese, Japanese, or Korean men. If I read an ambw fanfiction, I guarantee they’re going to describe the woman as a beautiful ebony chocolate goddess and the man as being white as snow with small slanted eyes (because all Asians have slanted eyes I guess).

Can I just ask the AMBW community one question? What is going on? I don’t get this thing where we’re proclaiming a love of Asian men, desperately wanting them to love us for our dark skin, and yet we want him to have skin like a piece of paper. Likewise, the only time I see anyone caring to talk about AMBW, it seems to only matter if the BW is darker skinned. I feel like there’s an odd double standard here. I see so many women in AMBW groups, angry when they see how AMWF (Asian man white female) is so much more popular than AMBW here in the United States (for obvious reasons). And many of the complaints I hear are “Asian men just worship white skin, I wish they were more open to dark girls, blah blah blah”.  Whenever these k-pop idols talk about their ideal type and 99% of them say they want a pale skinned girl (for OBVIOUS reasons), some black women get salty and say they wish these men were into dark skin. And yet, these same black women only care about light skinned Asian men. Their preference is Chinese men, Japanese, men, Korean men; MAYBE Vietnamese, Thai, and Taiwanese men as they tend to be closer to big three mentioned above. They’re literally lusting after idols who are all pale skinned, and many even complain that they get white washed in edited photos (yet that doesn’t stop them from lusting after them). I never hear these ladies say anything about Indians, Indonesians, Filipinos, Cambodians, Malaysians; any tanned to darker skinned Asian men.

And I’m not angry, nor am I saying these women are ‘wrong’ for this. Mostly I’m just confused. Why is it that AMBW’s main ‘selling point’ is the ‘beauty of a dark skinned woman and a light skinned man’? Why can it never be a darker skinned guy and a lighter woman? At the very least, like I said, we can usually at least find some tan to light skinned black women in these pairings. But the amount of tan to dark skinned men is abysmal in my experience. I’ve just never seen or even heard of it. Am I saying it doesn’t exist just because I’ve not seen it? No. But it does make me wonder.

I’ll go to AMBW online groups and the women are always asking, ‘where do you find Asian guys?’. And the answers are almost always “Oh what state are you in? There’s a Chinatown here and a Koreatown there, and there’s a decent Chinese population in xyz.” The recommendations and the general assumption is that everyone is looking for Chinese or Korean men. And I know what people are going to say, “Well if they’re in the U.S. of course they’re gonna primarily look at Chinese people because Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants are the largest Asian group in the states”. That is true, but you know what’s hilarious? Indians and Filipinos are the next largest Asian groups in the U.S. And yet, black women are dashing past these groups for Koreans and Japanese men.

I’ve seen many AMBW dating sites and the vast majority of the dating profiles for men are light skinned men. When you look through the success stories or promoted pictures and whatnot, it’s like 80% dark skinned women and 98% light skinned men. I’ve even seen an AMBW interview channel and I’ve not seen one dark skinned man interviewed among the guys. For anyone who believes me to be wrong, please guide me to the sites and accounts where there are more light skinned black women and dark skinned Asian men, because I’m telling you I look and I look and I rarely see them.

So why is this? Why whenever we talk about AMBW do we only mean light skinned east Asian man + dark skinned black women. I truly wonder why there’s just no dark Asian men in the equation. This is something that genuinely confuses me. Should be make a new dating category, called DSAMBW (dark skinned Asian man-black woman)? I’m mostly joking, but really, anyone who can add some insight to this would be really helpful. Just to clarify once more, I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. It's just something I noticed one day and actually had me thinking for a long time, wondering why it is.