Uncouth Reflections

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

You don’t normally think of Asian girls as bombshells, but I think Natsuko Tohno fits the bill.

Anyone remember Natsuko? Back in the ’90s she was popular figure in the world of Japanese cheesecake magazines. Amusingly, the Japanese have one of those funny mangled-English terms to refer to models of her type: they’re called “gravure idols.” Presumably the “gravure” part derives from the rotogravure process, which is used to print magazines. The Japanese and their cultural lingo, eh? Gurabia aidoru!

Natsuko was also popular on the early internet, which for a few years there seemed like the sole province of lonely sub-30 guys looking for free porn, information about “Star Wars” toys and computer games, and fellow fans of Monty Python. Isn’t it funny how the ‘net has brought all of these niche-y cultural interests out into the light? It continues to do so today: Would fan fiction ever become what it is without the influence of the internet? Would most of us even be aware of it?

To tie this back into Natsuko and her charmingly hourglass figure: It was the internet that first made me aware of the fact that a lot of Western dudes have a major thing for Asian chicks. Early dirty link sites like Persian Kitty and The Hun (I’m as amazed as you are that they’re still active) were filled with referals to Asian content; some even had sections devoted to Asian gals. Often, the Asian material seemed more popular than the Western stuff. While, back in ’95 or thereabouts, yellow fever (or whatever you want to call it) was not exactly new to my consciousness, I certainly had never thought of it as widespread, let alone mainstream. It’s fair to say the internet changed my sense of the phenomenon.

What do you think happened there? Had hordes of guys stormed onto the ‘net hoping to manifest a latent Asian fetish? Or had those fetishes been created — or at least stimulated — by the access granted by the internet? It’s likely not possible to tease out cause and effect. But it makes you think . . .

(Another thing: The ’80s and ’90s saw a major upswing in the number of Asians attending U.S. colleges. Is it possible that, as American dudes were increasingly around Asian women during their college — i.e. prime horndog — years, they became increasingly susceptible to yellow fever?)

Anyway, I recently found some photos of Natsuko while looking through an old hard drive, and they brought back a few memories. I wondered: Where had she and her lovely knockers gone? Turns out the internet has no answer. Having birthed Natsuko from the depths of its unruly cyber-consciousness, like Zeus birthing Athena from his forehead, the internet then abandoned her (or did she abandon it?), leaving only a few lonely traces of her former popularity.

Lots of NSFW cutie-pie sultriness below the fold. Have a good weekend.

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