Poll: Do racial preferences in dating have roots in ignorance/stereotypes?

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

My question is... should someone be allowed to be offended?

Having a preference is one thing, being a douchebag about your preference is another.

Considering it's a sensitive subject, I don't really see any real situation where someone would have to be totally honest about their preferences, let alone aggressive about it. For a hypothetical example, if an Asian were hitting on me, there's really no occasion I could imagine where I'd HAVE to explicitly tell them, "nah, I don't dig Asians, sorry." There'd always be another way to diffuse the situation and make my lack of interest clear without revealing my unfavorable attraction towards Asians - and being outwardly racist and offensive is something that any thoughtful person would have no trouble with to begin with.

You hit the nail right on the head.

A 'no' can suffice. A 'you're not my type' is fine. But when someone takes the time to say out like "I'm not attracted to what you are", it's like a double slap in the face. Not only am I rejecting you, I feel the need to tell you what you are on a basic level repels me.

I know some people just like to share their feelings, but it can't help but to come off like someone is trying to twist the knife a little. There's such a thing as tact or decorum. If someone constantly smells and they try to ask you out, you'll never say "Never going to date you, you smell horrible". You'll be polite and say that you're just not into that person. If someone is physically weaker than you like, you might say you're not attracted to them, but you wouldn't say "You're way too weak for me, so I'm not into you"

People who reject others and who has to make it a point on communicating it's due to their dislike of their rejectee's racial background, it's hard not to feel negatively towards them. Especially if they only make it a point of communicating their refusal of affection due to race, but never mention the other different reasons why they are rejecting other people they aren't attracted to.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

White guy here and usually I crush on white women because thats most of what I run into... I am usually not into African women because of the hair, I like long hair not dreadlocks or afros(black women can straighten their hair of course but its rare around here). Asian women I like, they seem to have consistently great looking shiny glossy black hair. Also it helps the asian cause that I tend to favor rather short women. Ive been attracted to a rather dark brown skinned woman before, i never did figure out but she might have been partially african.

 

[Saetha]

Basic white ***** here and... Hmm. I guess I have a preference, both for some races and against others. I generally don't find black men attractive. It's not a hard and fast rule, I've seen some handsome black dudes (Like Anthony Mackie for instance - damn son), but for the most part... *Shrug* It's something about the hair, methinks. Kinda like how I'm not really into blonde dudes, either.

Granted, personality should be accounted for. Hell, I might even date someone I don't find attractive if I loved spending time with them.

However, my sister pointed out a few weeks ago that I had a thing for "foreign guys," and my immediate thought was "The hell does that even mean?" Upon examination though... eh, I noticed that I do find a lot of Indian, Asian and Middle Eastern men attractive. I mean, still attracted to more white guys on the whole, but I also just see more white guys on the whole. And when that video said that South Asian men are the second-least responded to I was like "What - no! Sendhil Ramamurthy's South Asian!"

Sendhil Ramamurthy's pretty hot, okay?

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's racist, yes, and based on stereotypes, though in of itself it's one of the least worrisome ways to be racist. OTOH, if someones say, I don't think X people are attractive, they are too Y...it's not unlikely that this won't be the only evidence of their racism.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Everyone's attracted to different things in a potential mate. This includes physical characteristics such as race.

Nothing wrong with it.

I can't really help that asian women are attractive to me...they just hit my buttons. The same goes for latinas and whites. African American women? Some? But mostly not.

Not being physically attracted to a particular race isn't 'racist' any more than not being attracted to a certain sex is indicative of sexism.

 

[Lufia Erim]

People can be attracted to hair and eye colour, I see no reason why large physical differences such as those affected by race wouldn't also be ground for affecting attraction.

I don't really think there's anything wrong with that.

It doesn't really seem to be a thing that people can control.

Racism is about the view of other races, viewing a race as inferior simply because they are that race.

Finding somebody unattractive is not the same as thinking they're inferior.


As for myself? Not sure. I guess my idealised "Husbando" is always imagined to be white, but, I've never considered it a concious thing, and I certainly wouldn't decline a guy just based on the colour of his skin or anything like that.

What if while you are still attracted to people of different races you wouldn't date/sex them because you see them as inferior or taboo?

OT: eh. I'm black and im attracted to fat white women. But there are a lot of black guys that like that for some reason. I might be genetically engineered to like big white women O_O.

 

[Bat Vader]

I couldn't care any less what race a woman is. As long as the woman meets at least 70% of what I am looking for on my checklist I will find them attractive. In case anyone is wondering here is what is on the list. The woman is chubby or curvy(not overly fat), nerdy/geeky, likes video games, anime, reading, thinks for herself, and is intelligent. As long as a woman is 70% or higher on the checklist I will find them attractive.

I just have high standards.

 

[Charli]

Considering whom I've been attracted to in my life and weighing them all, it's safe to say Race isn't a factor in my decisions. You just have to meet some invisible criteria I haven't yet boiled down to it's base.

Heck I can't remember the last time I was attracted to anyone who was inside my own 'racial scope', that's quite baffling to me now the more I think about it.

Huh.

Food for thought then.

 

[Cryselle]

I'm going to second what MeatMachine said. I don't believe people get to choose what they are attracted to, but they sure as hell can choose how they act about their own preferences. (I also think most people aren't very honest about their preferences. I know more than one guy who 'only likes white women' who practically drooled seeing Halle Berry topless in Swordfish.) To try and categorize a particular attraction as 'racist' or 'ignorant' though is unfair, given that we really know so little of how the mind works and all the factors that go into forming interests and attractions in the first place. It's only how they act that should be judged.

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

I appreciate hot regardless of race or ethnicity. Try as might to impose my own version of white power on my nether regions little King Gustav will not see himself denied, he is after all my sovereign. Culture or religion though might present a problem. Not when it comes to dating but rather kids. I am not a teenager anymore and I have to realize that the next woman I meet could possibly be the mother of my children and I would find it weird if my kids ended up thinking of themselves as not swedes or muslims of some kind. Still, if I met a hindu girl I really liked the kids can go fuck themselves, I'll work it out later.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I definitely have preferences which realistically include racial preferences (you don't find a lot of black women who look like Allison Brie for example) as part of the overall aesthetic.

You don't find a lot of white women who look like Allison Brie either, unfortunately.

 

[Frokane]

the poll results are kinda shocking.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Is it racist to have racial preferences when it comes to dating? I don't think so, not by it self, and not with the way the term racist is used any more. Besides there are always outliers for everyone when it comes to dating preferences, some straight men might find a very small minority of men very attractive to them, to the point where they question their sexuality.

Personally sexual attraction plays extremely little to no role for me, though physically I find some racial physical traits aesthetically unpleasing. Because of that I don't generally find people of African, east Indian, Hispanic, Arabic, or Jewish descent as attractive, although there are plenty of exceptions. At the same time I do generally find those of east Asian, Native American, European Caucasian, and Pacific East Islander descent more attractive. But being that I'm essentially asexual, but pan-romantic, people's race is easily overridden by what kind of person they are. If they're compatible on a personality level with me, then their race, sex, gender identity, weight, height, and any other physical trait is overridden. Also because of this if I find a person emotionally and personally incompatible with me, then no matter how attractive they are physically to me, it's not gonna work out, and I'll find them far less attractive because of their personality.

 

[Darmani]

Different ethnicities have different looks, and attraction on skin, body types, or just familiarity is a thing. There IS some based on stereotypes. And some on just preference.
I like asians, like men and women, but there is so much variation and even looks of asian men and women I don't into. Moreover like with any relationship, even a primarily sexually recreational one you want to have mutual thing BEYOND the just physical fetish.

 

[FoolKiller]

My question is... should someone be allowed to be offended?

Having a preference is one thing, being a douchebag about your preference is another.

Considering it's a sensitive subject, I don't really see any real situation where someone would have to be totally honest about their preferences, let alone aggressive about it. For a hypothetical example, if an Asian were hitting on me, there's really no occasion I could imagine where I'd HAVE to explicitly tell them, "nah, I don't dig Asians, sorry." There'd always be another way to diffuse the situation and make my lack of interest clear without revealing my unfavorable attraction towards Asians - and being outwardly racist and offensive is something that any thoughtful person would have no trouble with to begin with.

Oddly, telling them that you won't date them because you "don't dig Asians" may actually be the nicer thing to do. I could just say I don't find her attractive and now I've offended her and made her feel bad about herself. If I admit that I'm not into Asians, it either comes off as me just being honest without making her feel that its something personal, or I come off as an ass which means she won't feel bad about herself because she thinks she dodged a bullet.

 

[MeatMachine]

Oddly, telling them that you won't date them because you "don't dig Asians" may actually be the nicer thing to do. I could just say I don't find her attractive and now I've offended her and made her feel bad about herself. If I admit that I'm not into Asians, it either comes off as me just being honest without making her feel that its something personal, or I come off as an ass which means she won't feel bad about herself because she thinks she dodged a bullet.

It's certainly possible that some individuals may take the shoot-down from "I'm not interested in you because of what you are" less hard than "I'm not interested in you because of who you seem to be", but that's probably because either message is unpleasant in a different way. Still, if you ask me, I'd wager that far more people would be bothered by the broad and seemingly baseless dismissal of race, rather than a personal and distinct reason for decision - the key difference being that in the latter one, they actually care enough to see you as a human being worthy of respect and recognition as an individual, rather than just, I don't know, an ugly brown smear in a t-shirt.

True story: I once had a woman turn me down because my astrology sign is Virgo, and "I don't date Virgos, because all my ex-boyfriends were Virgos and were abusive." Somehow, that actually bothered me more than the girl at the bar who let me buy her a drink, but blew me off immediately afterwords because "5'8" manlets are gross."

 

[JemothSkarii]

I've dated a few women of different ethnicity I find I don't really have heavy preferences. I think I ever so slightly lean towards asians, but that could be the whole 'influence of the first love' thing.

Not that it really matters, I've stopped dating for a while now. So chalk me up as 'forever alone'.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

Even though I have yet to date, were I to, I would not let race/ethnicity determine who I'm interested in. There are quite a few people (both here and IRL) that I would find repulsive, but it's not because of race.

Straight and forever alone. I can live with it.

 

[Jadak]

Depends, there's a bit of a spectrum on defining people as a particular race. So while I would say that I'm only attracted to other white folk, not every black person is all that black, for example.

So I suppose it's less that I won't date only whites and more that I typically am not attracted to people who are quite significantly different.

 

[The Harkinator]

I have my own preferences of what I find attractive in a woman, and race does come into that significantly. But so does hair colour/style and the way her face looks (I'm sure there's a better term for that, but I can't think of it right now).

I'm white, and I'm most attracted to white women, I'd say I'm least attracted to black women but I don't find them repulsive or anything, they just don't float my particular boat. I can't say I have a preference for asian women either, I don't get the obsession some men have but everyone has different ideals I suppose.

Obviously though, if I'm going to date someone the big decider is going to be her personality. If there's no connection besides attraction then I'm completely not interested. For me there has to be some meaning to the whole thing beyond attractiveness.

Everyone has their own ideals of attractiveness, and race coming into that is just a part of personal preference. It doesn't mean a person is awful and racist if they don't want to date other races, but that's not a licence to be an asshole about the whole thing either.

I definitely have preferences which realistically include racial preferences (you don't find a lot of black women who look like Allison Brie for example) as part of the overall aesthetic.

You don't find a lot of white women who look like Allison Brie either, unfortunately.

Alison Brie... *wistful sigh*