I'm gonna sound soooo racist but...

[Toriver]

I remember I caught an episode of some stupid reality show where there was this big issue where this topic came up, and one guy on the show said that while he didn't think them inferior in any way, he just wasn't physically attracted to black women. A white guy, of all people, got all offended by it, calling the comment racist and being all angry and furious. Meanwhile, a black guy, who was actually a professor of psychology dealing with love and sex (his nickname was the "love doctor"), flat out said that such a situation was completely natural and there was nothing racist about it. But the white guy couldn't get off his f***in' high horse, and really seemed to come across as racist himself for taking it upon himself to get angry for an entirely different group of people.

So yeah, this topic is totally not racist. And I actually have that same preference listed above, I just don't feel sexually attracted to black women, but I do for other races. Though I honestly don't think it's because of the skin color, but the other things that many black women emphasize or do to make themselves look attractive. It just doesn't work for me. I don't think any less of them as people, but I'm just not attracted to them. As the "love doctor" from that show said, it's just a natural part of psychology to be attracted to certain qualities over others in a mate.

 

[Gigano]

Yep, you were right, that's pretty racist.

How is talking about what factors of a person's looks tie into one's own subjective romantic preferences - without making any objective value judgement on them whatsoever - "racist"?

Am I then sexist for not wanting to sleep with men because of their gender?

 

[AdeptaSororitas]

I will take a rather dangerous leap and state my preference. I prefer white men and women. And no not "average Caucasian" no, I mean white, Gothic white, never seen the freakin' sun white, Christina Hendrecks looks tanned white.

Doing fine so far.

I'm not sure why, to me it is an unconscious symbol of purity and depth. It also really goes excellent with red hair, dark hair and green eyes.

And here's your problem.

I've been trying to re-read it several times to see if I'm getting it wrong. But every time I read it, it sounds like you're equating white skin to purity, or at least you're reminded of purity when you see white skin. I will simply not comment on that any further until I get that clarified because it wouldn't be fair to anyone if I did.

Well the purity thing comes from the color white itself. The color in any context equates to purity just as red always equates to passion or anger. Also white in the context of skin means they stay out of the sun and don't work outside. Also flawless white skin is incredible hard to achieve genetically, where as tan-white is comparatively easy to get and find. It's not pure in the sense of best, but pure in the sense of difficultly to acquire.

 

[Phishfood]

Yep, you were right, that's pretty racist.

Is it? Is it really? I have to say I much prefer white people myself. I've been surrounded by white people since birth, white people are what I find attractive. That doesn't mean if I'm giving a job interview I'm going to hire the white person over the black person.

This is one of those cultural things where it turns out race matters. As well to say its "racist" to dislike a woman with a car wreck of a face (and I mean literally, been in a car wreck disfigured). Our genes are programmed to look for a healthy mate.

 

[Mxrz]

White has not always been a symbol of purity, nor red anger. Different cultures have always attached their own meanings to colors. Liking what you like is fine and dandy, but trying attach any deeper meaning or justification to it is not only silly but also gives some negative vibes.

 

[Toriver]

Well the purity thing comes from the color white itself. The color in any context equates to purity just as red always equates to passion or anger. Also white in the context of skin means they stay out of the sun and don't work outside. Also flawless white skin is incredible hard to achieve genetically, where as tan-white is comparatively easy to get and find. It's not pure in the sense of best, but pure in the sense of difficultly to acquire.

Well, you're not quite correct about white always being seen as a color of purity. It's a cultural thing. In Western culture and some Asian cultures, yes, white is seen as a "pure" color. But in other cultures, white is seen as a color of death, like black is in the West. Colors have different meanings when put into different contexts in different cultures. It's never a universal thing. Just thought you might want to keep that in mind.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I will take a rather dangerous leap and state my preference. I prefer white men and women. And no not "average Caucasian" no, I mean white, Gothic white, never seen the freakin' sun white, Christina Hendrecks looks tanned white.

Doing fine so far.

I'm not sure why, to me it is an unconscious symbol of purity and depth. It also really goes excellent with red hair, dark hair and green eyes.

And here's your problem.

I've been trying to re-read it several times to see if I'm getting it wrong. But every time I read it, it sounds like you're equating white skin to purity, or at least you're reminded of purity when you see white skin. I will simply not comment on that any further until I get that clarified because it wouldn't be fair to anyone if I did.

Well the purity thing comes from the color white itself. The color in any context equates to purity just as red always equates to passion or anger. Also white in the context of skin means they stay out of the sun and don't work outside. Also flawless white skin is incredible hard to achieve genetically, where as tan-white is comparatively easy to get and find. It's not pure in the sense of best, but pure in the sense of difficultly to acquire.

Well, my next question is really what are you trying to get out of the topic. I mean, if it's support, you got it. You already have about two pages of people who support your view. It won't wash things away though.

I like to be active, I run and do martial arts and drink Mountain Dew because I'm extreme. So someone who is out of shape isn't going to appeal to me as much because it seems like she might not be able to keep up. Now, barring those who COULD actually keep up with me (and at that point, yes, I could start being attracted to them) those who could not would be offended because I'm looking at their weight before seeing them.

Then it gets broken down further. What is really important to a relationship and what's not? I think we're all happy when we get someone we find hot, but I think we all know that after the first week, there better be something else or we're out the door. Could I give up doing stuff outdoors for someone? It's a pretty big part of my life. Not only for play, but for my freaking income.

Now, could I give up a perk? B's instead of D's? 5'10 instead of 5'4? short hair instead of long hair? Absolutely. These things don't add up to the measure of the personality. They are markers and nothing more. It therefore becomes arbitrary and I might be shooting myself in the foot if I'm just going for long haired, 5'4 D cups.

Although typing that out, that does sound pretty awesome.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I have no skin color preference but it hasto look natural, a white girl grilled to a crisp is creepy as hell.
The only thing that really matters as far as looks go are body features.
Hell, to me even those avatar ladies are hot, or in fact any alien resembling a human female form.

My subconscious isn't racist, only sexist

 

[Captain_Fantastic]

i have similiar tastes(small nice eyes caucasian) but i can litteraly say i was raised in a small town with a lack of darker people i met my first asian fellow (one of my best friends) in the fifth grade and only ever saw african american people when i went out of town until the tenth grade

 

[Keepeas]

I actually had this sort of discussion with my friends a while back
and we all came to the conclusion the it was a sexual preference and is NOT racist.
I'm personally not very attracted to Black or Indian girls. Does that mean I'm racist? NO.
btw: I think the most important feature is the face; skin color is strongly liked to the face.

lol at captcha: Indians upolener

 

[Brutal Peanut]

I am of Native American/Mexican and also German descent. I have black hair and brown eyes (dark to very light brown in certain lights), but lighter skin. My husband says it was one of the reasons he was so attracted to me, also saying that my facial features were very distinctive and 'different' to what he was used to seeing until he moved here. I'm also short.

I myself, prefer white guys. Tall, thin (almost gangly), geeky/nerdy white guys. I ended up marrying one, after all.

Is it racist? No.

 

[Sprinal]

Extremely pale... Or anything really but not quite so much.

On a different note. I think the reason I like the really pale women is because of what it represents to me. To me it represents that the person is not one of those annoying non thinking idiots that exist in my opinion almost everywhere.

In reality I don't care that much. As long as she is completly crazy (probably will regret this once I try and get married in about 10 or so years).

So really I think I probably care more about hair colour than skin.

ALSO MOST, MOST, MOST IMPORTANT

THEY CANNOT BE DUMB

If dumb I cannot stand them for more than about 2 minutes

 

[raklin]

I will take a rather dangerous leap and state my preference. I prefer white men and women. And no not "average Caucasian" no, I mean white, Gothic white, never seen the freakin' sun white, Christina Hendrecks looks tanned white.

Doing fine so far.

I'm not sure why, to me it is an unconscious symbol of purity and depth. It also really goes excellent with red hair, dark hair and green eyes.

And here's your problem.

I've been trying to re-read it several times to see if I'm getting it wrong. But every time I read it, it sounds like you're equating white skin to purity, or at least you're reminded of purity when you see white skin. I will simply not comment on that any further until I get that clarified because it wouldn't be fair to anyone if I did.

Personally, while in extreme cases I can find white women attractive on a purely physical scale, I usually don't. I see it so much that it gets boring. In fact, that's how my attraction usually works. I want something new. I've seen people of my race all my life. Ok. been there, done that. I've been drowning with White people. What else is out there?

Now, the rub is that I'm apart of a culture that white people vastly make the number of. So, while I'm not usually physically attracted to the girls I end up liking, I just happen to like them because their personalities are amazing and being just friends is not an option for me. It tends to hurt when someone says 'Wow, you do have a great personality. But you just happen to fall under a group of those I don't find desirable. If only you were a white guy'

And yes, I've had that real discussion plenty o' times.

Now, as one of the only token ethnic geeks who has admitted being so in this thread, I'll hazard what a few of my other token geek friends and I have discussed with our white geek friends when we talked about this; We're already seen as a skin color. I'm six foot two, I'm a personal trainer by trade, and I'm black. Also, I can out game most in any form of Warhammer, I collect video game trivia like it was the only way to keep me alive, and I'm a Browncoat for life. People have a hard time connecting the two.

And that's just regular people. I couldn't give two licks about them. But it's my own culture that still treats me like a leper. I can't tell you how many geek homes I've walked into and had to prove my geekdom because 'I didn't look the part'. That gets tiring. And, you know, you might want to have a mate with your similar interests. That's always nice. But alas, most white geeks either look for other white geeks or asians because they are the acceptable exotic.

I'm proud of my geekdom. Is it really that much to be seen as a geek first and everything else last?

I think what hes talking about isn't white skin in general being the "pure" stuff, but ultra pale white skin specifically... And how can you blame him? Look at the cartoons we were raised on - Snow White (named so for having skin as white as snow, and was also pure of heart)and whatnot. It's not so much a form of racism on his part as it is something that has been programmed into him at a young age. I'd say blame the popular media that always made the fair maiden into such a stereotype, while portraying blacks in a mostly negative light, until recent years, at least.

Of course, I don't know for sure because I obviously don't know him, but that's my general impression.

As for my own tastes in skin color, as a young twenty-something white guy, I find myself mostly attracted to pale skinned chicks, followed by Latinos/asian and then mulattoes. Darker skin doesn't really do it for me on a superficial level - Around halle berry's skin tone is the farthest I'd find attractive.

 

[Denariax]

Preference isn't the same thing as genuine hatred, children. I prefer the same, it doesn't mean I'm gonna walk outside and re-enact the bus scene from 1940 or whatever.

 

[weirdsoup]

Have to say, skin tone doesn't bother me, as long as it's the persons natural one.

This is because of an unpleasant experience I had with a fake tan'd girl. After a night of naughty-bad fun the bed sheets looked like they were covered in shit.

 

[AdeptaSororitas]

-snip-

Um, I'm a girl... But thanks for the backup.

 

[Ethan Asia]

I'm Victorian in the sense that I like my ladies whiter than a snowman with a bukkake fetish.

 

[Araksardet]

I can see why some people might think this is racist, but it isn't (EDIT: more accurately, it doesn't have to be). Skin color varies within "races" as well as between them, for one thing, and sexual preference is different from acceptance. A person can accept people of all skin colors, but not necessarily be equally attracted to them all, and why should they be?

That said, for me, although skin is a huge factor in how attractive I find a woman, skin *color* doesn't really make much of a difference. Skin plays a role on two fronts: one, how smooth is the person's skin, both in texture and appearance? The smoother it is - less wrinkles, blemishes, freckles, scars, folds, pimples, whatever - the sexier I find it, and it really doesn't matter whether it's ebony or ivory or something in between; I've been attracted to everything along the spectrum.

Second is how well it fits with a person's hair. People whose hair is of a lighter tone than their skin are automatically unattractive for me, barring something amazing to compensate. I can't say why, exactly. But isolated from other factors, the average color of a person's skin (i.e disregarding local discolorations and such) basically plays no role at all.

It's worth noting that most of the darker-skinned people I've met were born and raised in countries where there is a lot more sun, though, and lots of intense sunlight does a real number on skin. But I've met several darker-skinned women born and raised in cooler climates, and they are on average just as attractive as any white woman. This one young woman I knew several years ago was from an immigrated Ethiopian family, and a perfect example of this; her parents had the skin of people 25 years older than their age, but she had skin like polished black marble. Queue jaw dropping.

 

[tjcross]

Totally racist. XD

Skin tone is not that important to me. Its the features that generally tend to go along with each race that makes the difference.
I am not attracted to many black or asian women because of just quite subtle differences in their features that put me off. But I do like hispanic variations, some indian girls, standard Caucasian features, etc.

not really see a persons skin tone is part of their physical appearance and what a person is sexually attracted to is a part of their minds that unconsciously judges the appearance of others (which usually leads to the conscious thought of i find that person to look sexually appealing) only extremely tragic events can change what a person is sexually attracted to. to say i like black chicks because they look nice is not in and of itself a racist statement saying i like black chicks because all white chicks are bitches it racist.
now on topic i really can't say i like any skin tone (other than spray tan orange which i hate) over any other now this will sound really weird coming from me but since i was 13 (currently 16) all that has mattered to me is the personality (well that and that she isn't repulsive, average and above is fine) and all my crushes have been white I've seen about 5-6 colored people (all guys) in my life (i live in Nova Scotia and from my experience and what i've heard not many colored people live here)
ouch just noticed you got quoted 3 other times i think i fell into a troll trap oh well at least i'm able to keep my cool (like most other people on the escapist)