Dating, race, and you.

[Happy Ent]

I've wondered about this several times.  Within-race coupling is socially dominant.

 

Online dating sites are a treasure trove for this kind of thing, endlessly fascinating.

 

The good people of OKCupid are quite generous with their data, and publish readable nuggets. Here is Race and Attraction 2009–14 .

 

In short, the story is more interesting than racial homogeneity: Asian men and Black women are penalised, White men and Asian women are preferred. More specifically, non-black men penalise black women. Women prefer men from their own race. The data is broken down in two dimensions in the blog. 

[Littlefingers In The Air]

I think for me, I can't help but try to think of this along the lines of what informs our attractions. At least in America, for example, it's interesting when you're an inner city black kid growing up. On the one hand, growing up, minorities are grossly underrepresented in tv and movies and there is a white standard of beauty that is established, even in the Disney movies we all love.

So, I'm taught of the beauty of the white man and the white woman on tv, but my day to day interactions are largely only with other black folk. This isn't such a big deal until I'm in high school. Media influence has shaped my view of what an attractive white woman is, and actual experience has shaped my view of what an attractive black woman is. Obviously, there ends up being a disconnect and I end up needing to resocialize myself so that I can appreciate the beauty in any woman, regardless of race.

I do that, it turns out fine, and I get through that stage of life with very few racially charged incidents and an appreciation for all women. Then, post-high school happens and I end up figuring out that, even though I can be attracted to anyone, it is the special connection between black people in America, through shared plight, that ultimately informs who I'm attracted to. So I end up resolving that, when I want a monogamous agreement, it would be hard for me to be comfortable with a woman who isn't a person of color, because I don't think I could wet really be understood by someone else.

Adjust for being open to the idea that a woman who isn't a person of color may be able to understand me, and that I simply have yet to meet such a woman, and you have my current views on race and dating, in terms of what's informing how I see everything. I hope I got what I'm saying across well enough.

[MercenaryChef]

I am not the preferred cup of tea for a great many people. It may be my height, beard, atheism, lack of money, having a penis, or even my skin tone.

The idea that one is precluded from a potential dating pool for whatever reason is entirely personal.

Dating is not affirmative action. Not being interested in a certain race, gender, tax bracket, weight, etc is a personal decision that should not be given too much thought.

[DreamSongs]

It is more of a cultural thing for me.  I find intelligent, educated men attractive no matter what the color/ethnic back round.  An accent gains you triple points.

 

In practice, this means that an accent will get me every time.   If you have an American accent, you had better be willing to have a lot in common with me.

 

Yeah, I'm too picky.  That's why I'm 47 and have never been married.

[jarl the climber]

One of the hard things about dating someone from a different race or ethnicity is dealing with the friends and family. Now if you all ready know the family ahead of time and they are OK with you that makes thing a little easier. If you have to go in cold that can be a little touchy and if you have other oppurtunities out there for you that don't entail these difficulties why bother with it? 

[Magnar of Skagos]

Why not?

Not being sexually attracted to someone of African descent, or Asian descent, or European or Native American, is not racist.

 

 

One of the hard things about dating someone from a different race or ethnicity is dealing with the friends and family. Now if you all ready know the family ahead of time and they are OK with you that makes thing a little easier. If you have to go in cold that can be a little touchy and if you have other oppurtunities out there for you that don't entail these difficulties why bother with it? 

 

My girlfriend's parents are completely opposed to me due to me having British ancestry. IMO my feelings for my girlfriend out way the negative opinions her family has with me.

[Tyrellius]

Bullshit - its racist.  Not being attracted to individuals is a matter of taste, not being attracted to an entire race of people is racist.  Your racism may be subconscious, fucked up by media and your friends/family/whatever, but its there.

[Castel]

 

Online dating sites are a treasure trove for this kind of thing, endlessly fascinating.

 

The good people of OKCupid are quite generous with their data, and publish readable nuggets. Here is Race and Attraction 2009–14 .

 

In short, the story is more interesting than racial homogeneity: Asian men and Black women are penalised, White men and Asian women are preferred. More specifically, non-black men penalise black women. Women prefer men from their own race. The data is broken down in two dimensions in the blog. 

 

And that's kind of what I'm getting at when I ask what happens if there's a clear trend of a certain group being penalised. 

 

If you heap opprobrium on the people making absolute statements you'll likely just get more diplomatic ones and there's not necessarily any change in underlying behavior. So it seems more about being able to conveniently pick out the group that  absolutely will not while not causing blanket statements and general awkwardness when we start looking at everyone else.

[Magnar of Skagos]

Bullshit - its racist.  Not being attracted to individuals is a matter of taste, not being attracted to an entire race of people is racist.  Your racism may be subconscious, fucked up by media and your friends/family/whatever, but its there.

If an individual is not attracted to someone because they have pale skin for example, it is a matter of taste, but if they are not attracted to multiple people with that same physical attribute, its racist? Is that any different than an individual who is not attracted to redheads, or blondes?

[Dr. Pepper]

It comes down to language and how one conveys their attractions.  There is a world of difference between saying "I don't generally find myself sexually/romantically/aesthetically attracted to X,Y or Z" and saying "I would never date someone who isn't white or I wouldn't even consider speaking to those outside a certain socioeconomic group."  The weight of prejudice is missing in one sort of statement while it's very apparent in the other.  

[Tyrellius]

If an individual is not attracted to someone because they have pale skin for example, it is a matter of taste, but if they are not attracted to multiple people with that same physical attribute, its racist? Is that any different than an individual who is not attracted to redheads, or blondes?

 

Really?  Thats the counter?  Dont bother replying - I've ignored you.

[TerraPrime]

The question points to a very complex social phenomenon that has multiple dimensions. 

 

My view is that we decide to date someone or not based on a ratio of our physical attraction to them and on other factors (socio-economical, cultural, personality, religion, etc.). You have to have some of both, but the exact ratio can vary by person or even on a case by case basis. 

 

When we consider physical attraction, we recognize that each of us has our sense of aesthetics and some physical features just appeal to us more than others. I like men with facial and body hair, so those men are more attractive to me. That's similar to how some people fall for brunettes and others blonds, and then some people value a shapely pair of legs more than a pair of full lips, etc.  

 

However, we should also keep in mind that what we find attractive is more often than not influenced (not dictated) by culture. Take the U.S. culture for instance, where you hardly ever see any Asian men (SE Asian or Indian) being protrayed by mass media as sexually desirable or even attractive, then you have to ask yourself whether this lack of finding Asian men attractive is something innate to your own sense of aesthetics or is that a product of cultural immersion. One example of cultural influence on standards of attractiveness is the generael tendency for heterosexual men in America to dislike women with unshaven armpits or leg hair. The trend is much more prominent in the U.S. and reflects a cultural factor in affecting what we find attractive. 

 

On a different level, we should remember that "Asian" and "Black" and "Latino" and "Caucasian" are not homogenous groups. You can find the same physical traits in all "races," it's just a matter of different proportions of each type. In SE Asia, men are more commonly hairless and tend to be on the slimmer side, and yet, we have plenty of very muscular and hairy men, too. This means that when I see a criterion of exclusion based on a race, I have to wonder - "so there are no Asian/black/Latino/Caucasian men that you will find attractive, at all?" And since that seems pretty ludicrous on a physical attraction level, it does lead one to speculate that such exclusion is motivated not entirely based on physical attractions. 

 

I am not suggesting that we must all like every type of person from every race, but I also don't think it's beyond the pale to question the genesis of our attractions. More importantly, we should examine how we act on those attractions. We certainly cannot force ourselvs to become attracted to others - that's just not how human emotions work. But that doens't mean that blithely declaring that there's no racism, ever, involved in some people's dating decisions is a good approach, either. After all, physical attraction is just one factor in determining whether we want to date someone, or not. 

 

Which brings us to the non physical attraction factors influencing people's dating decisions. 

 

Some people have made the observation that it's not the race, but cultural familiarity that is the issue and race is just a placeholder signifier. That might be the case, but I will contend that it's still problematic. Most of the Asian Americans who are 3rd generation or later are way more American in cultural attitudes and behaviors than they are of their family ethnic roots might indicate. So, again, exclusion of entire race of people from consideration based on cultural familiarity does not come across as very valid. 

 

Ultimately, the diversity of people within each race category is such that delcaring an entire race of people unsuitable for dating is severely myopic. I can find you a hairy muscular fanatically evangelical bearded Chinese man who can't do math but who likes Donald Trump. It'd be rare, but I bet he exists. So, at face value, such declarations are really suspect of motivations not born of factors of physical attraction and cultural compatibility. I don't think people who make such declarations are automatically racist, but I do think they are highly insular and very ethnocentric, which are two traits I find very unattractive in anyone. 

[TerraPrime]

Double post:

 

I also think that being rejected for one's skin color and/or ethnicity does bear a different toll than being rejected for other traits, such as height, hair color, religion, etc. I'm not saying necessarily that one is worse than the other - after all, rejection is rejection. Yet, the reasons behind the rejection does matter to some people. If you're a person of color and you're told that you are not being considered as a potential date because of your skin color, then it's just yet another blow on top of the twenty thousand other blows you've experienced in your life on account of your race. For a white person, on the other hand, being told they are not date-able because they're white probably does not inflict the same level of distress. It's like being mistaken for someone who cannot pay a restaurant bill - if it happens to a rich person, they will become indignant, be offended, but then they will get over it because the other 99 thousand things in life continue to affirm to them their socio economic status. In comparison, the same thing happens to a person who has always grown up poor and barely making ends meet, it is going to be yet another reminder of the difference in social status. 

[Yagathai]

I bet you all think I'm going to post about a certain thing in this thread.

 

You all are wrong.

 

So far.

 

Instead, what I will say is that odor plays a much bigger role in sexual attraction than a lot of people give credit for, and people from different cultures tend to smell differently as a result of environment, diet, beauty standards, hygiene standards, etc.. The unfamiliar smell can be attractive or it can be repulsive, and it's very easy to conflate the smells common to that culture with the race predominant within that culture and form an association that you don't even know you've made.

[Yagathai]

Personally, rather than excluding people based on race, I'm still vying for that elusive IRL achievement, the Full Benetton. I'm still missing a couple and some nights it vexes me.

[Tyrellius]

I loved reading your Yellow Fever Threads :(  I still remember when that lil dude found out the boarder that was debating him was an actual Asian Female.  You could actually see cartoon hearts popping in the air.

[Magnar of Skagos]

It comes down to language and how one conveys their attractions.  There is a world of difference between saying "I don't generally find myself sexually/romantically/aesthetically attracted to X,Y or Z" and saying "I would never date someone who isn't white or I wouldn't even consider speaking to those outside a certain socioeconomic group."  The weight of prejudice is missing in one sort of statement while it's very apparent in the other.  

This is what I am saying. It seems people on this thread are jumping to the conclusion that because some individuals do not find themselves attracted to members of a certain race that that means they feel those people are inferior to them. While this no doubt happens, we cannot just assume that EVERYONE that isn't attracted to asians or african-americans is a racist. Culture obviously comes into play with how people think, but that doesn't mean these people automatically view others as inferior.

[Littlefingers In The Air]

This is what I am saying. It seems people on this thread are jumping to the conclusion that because some individuals do not find themselves attracted to members of a certain race that that means they feel those people are inferior to them. While this no doubt happens, we cannot just assume that EVERYONE that isn't attracted to asians or african-americans is a racist. Culture obviously comes into play with how people think, but that doesn't mean these people automatically view others as inferior.

I think the main point, as was beautifully laid out by TP and others, is that it's kind of fishy to exclude a race because of a lack of certain attributes, when it would definitely be possible to find partners of a different race with those attributes, however rare it may be. This would then point to other underlying issues for why a person is excluding a race, since it can't really intuitively be just physical attributes.

[AverageGuy]

I loved reading your Yellow Fever Threads :(  

 

The idea of being accused of X Fever is something that would stop me. Why deal with that BS if you don't have to? Dating outside my race would regularly prick my little bubble of CSWM privilege, and it just doesn't seem worth it.

[Magnar of Skagos]

I think the main point, as was beautifully laid out by TP and others, is that it's kind of fishy to exclude a race because of a lack of certain attributes, when it would definitely be possible to find partners of a different race with those attributes, however rare it may be. This would then point to other underlying issues for why a person is excluding a race, since it can't really intuitively be just physical attributes.

I agree with what you are saying, and I don't want to appear as if I'm saying racism has NO effect, which it most certainly does with a lot of people. IMO I just feel the "you're racist" card is being thrown around a little too loosely. I mean, in a world where people are attracted to anime cartoons and other people dressed up in stuffed animal/mickey mouse costumes, it's not difficult for me to believe that the girl on this bus 'just isn't into white guys,' so to say.

 

As someone that can find attractive people in every race/ethnicity, those are just my personal opinions on the topic.