'Raped by Santa Claus': Sexytimes With The Other, Part I

In every genre from Serious Literature to paperback romance novels, we have characters who fit the middle-class-WASP-default mold getting it on with people who are coded as the Other in the context of the story. Whether the divide is about socioeconomic class, ethnicity, race, or religion, there are some tropes which play out again and again. The first, which we'll address today, is the 'walk on the wild side', where the focus is on the emphasis is on the WASP character having an adventurous fling, often before settling down with a more socially acceptable partner.

The 'wild side' dynamic usually (but not always) involves a white/WASP women and a Other man. Incidentally, the title of the post is a reference to the 'you were raped by Santa Claus' scene in Invisible Man, which portrays one of these encounters from the point of view of the man being used as the 'exotic' adventure. The trope was clearly alive and well when Ellison wrote his novel, and shows zero signs of slowing down. Native American men seem to be a favorite, with black and racially-ambiguous South Americans as the runners-up; when the WASP character is male, the discarded love interest is often of some Asian ethnicity (and because I haven't picked on Scott for several weeks, I'd like to point out that Waverly features a rare European vs Celtic example). 
What distinguishes the fictional dynamic is the fact the Other character exists to be discarded-- they symbolise the protagonist sowing their wild oats and generally being irresponsible, and ultimately serve as a foil for the 'real' love interest, who invariably represents society's vision of a more appropriate partner. The key feature is this can't have anything to with the Other character's behaviour (except when that behaviour is indicative of their social status, ethnicity, etc)-- if there's a genuine personality clash that tanks the relationship, or a sincere effort on both sides to make things work (in which case you have a Tragic Interracial Romance, which is a post for another day), or the Other character is a jerk and gets rightfully dumped (which, depending on the characters, might be another can o' worms), it isn't this trope. 
There's a lot of problems to be unpacked here, but the two main issues are these: first and foremost, the Other character does not get a chance to develop as a character. They exist as a shell to serve the interests of the protagonist, and lack any motives of their own, by extension suggesting that the Other cannot exist on their own terms, but must be a reflection of the 'normal' character. They are never considered as a human being who might make a good life partner, but rather less than human-- a pet that can be taken to the pound to make room for a human infant. Which brings us to the second problem-- the whole 'adventure and discard' model almost always involves dissing the Other character's culture/religion/socioecomic background,  using this apparent inferiority as a reason they aren't viable life partner material.

So what if the two characters give it slightly more of a genuine effort? You're not out of the woods yet. Stay tuned for Part II.