# Do sexual preferences make one a bigot? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 12, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544 "2021-08-12T20:08:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2022, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/321 "2022-01-04T07:35:47Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Your response was dismissive Because it was whataboutery that was worth dismissing. > [@RickJay](#): > > But in fact, while colourism might be more likely to be one sided, @themapleleaf is stating a scenario that DOES happen. Vanishingly rarely. I live in a place where, if anti-White colourism _were_ going to be a thing, it would be perfectly understandable. But it doesn’t exist here in any appreciable quantity. So it’s a non-issue. > [@RickJay](#): > > And they are quite right; they have no right to be offended by someone finding white features unattractive or not wanting to date white people. The unicorn of anti-White colourism and the herd of horses that is world-wide pervasive anti-dark colourism are in no way equivalent, and it’s perfectly possible to be merely dismissive of one and vocally against the other without it being hypocritical, which seems to be the accusation you’re implying but not outright stating. A better fit would be ginger prejudice, and I loathe that the same way I do racist colourism. > [@RickJay](#): > > I have no right to take issue with anyone being sexually unattracted to me for any reason whatsoever. No. If they’re not sexually attracted to me _for racist reasons_, I still have the right to call out the underlying racism. I don’t have the right to force _change_ or any other action on them, but their choice being personal and intimate doesn’t force my _silence_. Bigotry is still bigotry even if it’s sexual. > [@RickJay](#): > > Their reasons are their own. If their reasons are likely racist, that’s up for public comment. We’ll never get rid of colourism if there’s an entire sphere of human activity where it’s entirely off-limits to make any comment at all. > [@RickJay](#): > > As to inviting a person to a party or not, or choosing people to hire into jobs, or making decisions as a jury member, that has nothing to do with sexual preference You _can’t_ be that naïve. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2022, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/322 "2022-01-04T23:37:57Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Your first question was “where do you draw the line” I meant, where do you draw the line between feeling discriminated against and not feeling discriminated against? You have said, as I understand it, a person should make their own decision to choose a sexual partner, so long as nobody’s sexual autonomy is violated. But none of my examples in this last post involved sex acts… You have said some of the behavior I described is crude, horrible, morally repugnant, and possibly illegal. But what I _really_ want to know is whether you would feel discriminated against, and whether you would describe that woman as a bigot. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/323 "2022-01-05T02:15:36Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I meant, where do you draw the line between feeling discriminated against and not feeling discriminated against? A person’s sexual preferences. To question a person’s sexual autonomy is rape culture, not social justice. > [@Max\_S](#): > > But what I _really_ want to know is whether you would feel discriminated against, and whether you would describe that woman as a bigot. By what? Being denied a job based on some aspect of myself I cannot change? Sure. By being denied sex, the subject of the thread? That’s not something I should criticize. In most cases sexism is wrong; I’m not upset that lesbians don’t want to have sex with me because I’m male. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/324 "2022-01-05T03:14:34Z")
Okay, work with me here. I tried to provide an example where you are denied an acting job based on your skin color, because the casting director has a sexual preference for other skin colors. That is “being denied a job based on some aspect of myself I cannot change”, therefore, you would feel discriminated against and describe the director as a bigot. But we are _also_ talking about a person’s sexual preference, that is, if the casting director is a bigot then her preference for certain skin colors is bigoted. Yet you say a person’s sexual preference cannot make you feel discriminated, and cannot be bigoted. This seems to be a contradiction; the casting director’s sexual preference makes her a bigot and you feel discriminated against, but sexual preferences are not bigoted and cannot make you feel discriminated against. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/325 "2022-01-05T03:18:18Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Okay, work with me here. I tried to provide an example where you are denied an acting job based on your skin color, because the casting director has a sexual preference for other skin colors. Being denied an acting job is not a matter of being denied sex. Redefining employment discrimination as “sexual preference” is, in my honest opinion, ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/326 "2022-01-05T03:38:20Z")
I’m really confused now. Of course employment discrimination can be caused by sexual preferences, just like it can be caused by racial preferences. Say some guy prefers Mexican workers because he thinks they work harder. That’s a racial preference. He prefers Juan over Roger because of Juan’s race. This woman we were talking about, her job is to cast a sexy person for some role. In my scenario all other things are equal, she thinks you are not as sexy because of your skin color, and you don’t get the part. You could say… she _prefers_ tan men over white men. She thinks tan men are more _sexy_ than white men because of their tan skin. Therefore she is more _sexually attracted_ to him than you. You were white and he was tan and so she hired him because her _sexual preference_ for tan over white made him more qualified for the job. If that’s not a sexual preference, what is a sexual preference? Is it not a sexual preference until you actually engage in, or intend to engage in sex acts? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/327 "2022-01-05T04:00:54Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I’m really confused now. Of course employment discrimination can be caused by sexual preferences, just like it can be caused by racial preferences. It’s irrelevant what YOU claim someone else’s racism is rooted in. Sexual preferences determine who you want to have sex with. Discriminating against someone when hiring a project manager is not a matter of sexual choice and autonomy. It wrong to discriminate against someone when making a hiring decision no matter what you think is in the person’s mind. Deciding who you want to have sex with (providing it’s not rape/assault, I’d assume any smart person would know I mean that but history shows that is not a safe assumption) is not a challengeable decision. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/328 "2022-01-05T04:03:20Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Is it not a sexual preference until you actually engage in, or intend to engage in sex acts? It’s really not - unless you also believe that because I am not attracted to women, I also cannot tell which women are more attractive to those who are attracted to women. Or that if I have some other non-skin color, non-gender preference , (such as blond hair or green eyes or a muscular body ), I cannot see any attractiveness in those who are “not my type”. And even that’s assuming that the person’s job is to hire “a sexy person for the role”, which it probably isn’t except in the sense that the overwhelming majority of actors are attractive at a minimum. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/329 "2022-01-05T04:06:35Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Sexual preferences determine who you want to have sex with. Discriminating against someone when hiring a project manager is not a matter of sexual choice and autonomy. It wrong to discriminate against someone when making a hiring decision no matter what you think is in the person’s mind. Deciding who you want to have sex with (providing it’s not rape/assault, I’d assume any smart person would know I mean that but history shows that is not a safe assumption) is not a challengeable decision. I agree with each sentence written here, but I don’t think I have gained or given any clarity by doing so. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/330 "2022-01-05T04:24:12Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > unless you also believe that because I am not attracted to women, I also cannot tell which women are more attractive to those who are attracted to women. I don’t believe that sort of thing. It doesn’t make a difference to me if it’s the casting director’s opinion on what features she personally considers sexually attractive, or if it’s her opinion on what she thinks her audience would consider sexually attractive. I am looking for a term to describe this idea: thinking a physical characteristic, or group of characteristics, is more sexually attractive. What term should I have used in the OP? It has to work in the context of choosing dates / sex partners, and also contexts like describing why somebody (who you aren’t having sex with) is attractive. Whatever that term is, I want to know if having it makes a person a bigot. ~Max _edited_ ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/331 "2022-01-05T04:45:57Z")
Basically I took two individual questions and tried to wrap them up succinctly in a more general form. - If I find myself unattracted to men (or at least most men), does that make me a bigot? - If a person finds one skin color more sexually attractive than another, does that make him or her a bigot? The scenarios for **RickJay** and **themapleleaf** in post #319 were extensions of the second question above, because I had read their responses as (my words here) “no, because I am not owed sexual attraction. Sexual attraction is a deeply personal matter and if someone doesn’t find me sexually attractive that’s none of my business / not for me to judge.” So what I’m trying to question now, is whether that “none of my business / not for me to judge” part holds when people _act_ on their [insert term here] in contexts outside of sexual intercourse. For example deciding who to associate with in social life, consciously or unconsciously. Or deciding who gets hired to model for an advertisement. Or (unconsciously) using it to decide whose testimony in trial is more believable. That kind of stuff is, IMO, totally my business and for me to judge. ETA: And there’s another angle here, I didn’t make this topic just to talk about judging _other_ people. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/332 "2022-01-05T05:17:11Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > It doesn’t make a difference to me if it’s the casting director’s opinion on what features she personally considers sexually attractive, or if it’s her opinion on what she thinks her audience would consider sexually attractive. That may be - but most people wouldn’t read “sexual preference” to mean “what someone thinks other people find sexually attractive”. If that’s what you’re talking about , I suppose it’s possible that some casting director _might_ be bigoted if she believes her audience is more likely to find a dark-skinned man more attractive than a light-skinned one- but that’s true even if her own personal preference is for light-skinned men. IOW, that sort of racism has nothing to do with her own personal preference. > What term should I have used in the OP? It has to work in the context of choosing dates / sex partners, and also contexts like describing why somebody (who you aren’t having sex with) is attractive. I don’t think there is a term that covers both , because it seems to me that they are two separate things. Sure, you could have a casting director who always picks the X actor over the not-X actor, because she believes that’s what audiences prefer - but that’s not a “sexual preference” in the common meaning of the phrase. You could also have a jury member who finds an attractive female witness more credible than an unattractive male witness - even though the juror is attracted to men, not women. And so on and so on. There is definitely an attractiveness bias \* in US society - but I’ve never seen anything that connects it to the sexual preferences of the biased ( perhaps because there is no way to do that) > [@Max\_S](#): > > So what I’m trying to question now, is whether that “none of my business / not for me to judge” part holds when people _act_ on their [insert term here] in contexts outside of sexual intercourse. I can’t even imagine how you could begin to know this about someone else - I mean, if you were to look at all the men I’ve slept with , you might assume that I am not attracted to blondes or black men or Hispanic men because I haven’t slept with any. But I also haven’t slept with anything close to all the men I’ve ever been attracted to - and there were indeed blondes and black and Hispanic men in that much, much larger group. You might know this about yourself- but what is your solution? To sleep with people you aren’t attracted to? Wouldn’t it be better just to make sure that it doesn’t spill over into the rest of your life, if you are really afraid that you will only socialize, etc with people you are sexually attracted to? \* And sometimes an anti-attractiveness bias - I recall reading about a study where an unattractive burglar was given a higher sentence by a mock jury than an attractive burglar ( yes, I know in the US jurors don’t sentence, but I didn’t do the study) while the attractive swindler got a harsher sentence than the unattractive one. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/333 "2022-01-05T05:19:44Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > A person’s sexual preferences. To question a person’s sexual autonomy is rape culture, not social justice. Questioning the roots of a sexual preference is not “questioning a person’s sexual autonomy”, which is not a thing anyway. There’s “violating a person’s sexual autonomy”, and there’s “questioning the morality of their preferences”, but “questioning autonomy” would be questioning if their autonomy should exist, which is _not_ what’s happening. We all agree (I hope) that the racist is free to not fuck who they want. They are not, however, free from being called a racist when they do so. Perhaps another comparison would help - do you know what [feederism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_fetishism) is? By all accounts, that’s a consensual sexual relationship. Yet it’s unhealthy as fuck, and should be called out as such. But not according to you. > [@RickJay](#): > > In most cases sexism is wrong; I’m not upset that lesbians don’t want to have sex with me because I’m male. Because lesbians not wanting to have sex with men is _not_ sexism. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/334 "2022-01-05T05:22:20Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I can’t even imagine how you could begin to know this about someone else You could ask, or try to, but… the primary motivation for this topic was my own thoughts, not someone else’s. Here’s the first question as written in the OP. > [@Max\_S](#): > > This got me thinking. Suppose **I’m** not sexually attracted to people of a protected class. **I** really am not sexually attracted to men. Does that make **me** a bigot? _Why or why not_ ? […] **my** lack of sexual attraction to men is an irrational feeling towards people based solely on a protected trait. How is this not prejudice on the basis of sex? How is it not bigotry? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/335 "2022-01-05T05:23:06Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > thinking a physical characteristic, or group of characteristics, is more sexually attractive. What term should I have used in the OP? Sexual preference _is_ a good term for this, and the people saying it’s not are just trying to play semantic games. In sexual psychology, proper, it has a more limited meaning, something like “the part of your sexual orientation you choose to manifest” e.g. a bisexually _oriented_ man who only sleeps with women would be said to have a heterosexual sexual _preference_ or something like that. But the words also have a plain, common-sense reading and that’s the way you’ve used it, and it hasn’t been confusing to me, at any rate, and I’ve not exactly been on your side in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/336 "2022-01-05T05:49:17Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > We all agree (I hope) that the racist is free to not fuck who they want. They are not, however, free from being called a racist when they do so. There must have been some confusion between us before the thread-gap, because I agree with **both** of these points. Your writing this dissolves what I thought was one of two major outstanding differences of opinion between us (in this topic at least). I also note that **RickJay** holds a similar, but perhaps not identical opinion on both points, > [@RickJay](#): > > Is someone a bigot for refusing to sleep with a person of a certain race? Yeah, **but it’s okay** for them to do that. We all agree that forced sex (rape) is wrong. The difference in opinion, if there is one, is that I’m not sure if **RickJay** would condone calling out or otherwise criticizing said racist. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/337 "2022-01-05T15:01:43Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > The difference in opinion, if there is one, is that I’m not sure if **RickJay** would condone calling out or otherwise criticizing said racist. Not for their personal sexual choices, no. Absolutely never. That’s profoundly immoral and antisocial. Behaviour matters. Thoughtcrime doesn’t. If someone **acts** in a racist way that’s subject to criticism - unless it has to do with their sexual autonomy. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/338 "2022-01-05T18:27:04Z")
Does ‘having to do with sexual autonomy’ extend to, say, - who you do or do not date - which friend you choose to spend more time with, on the off chance you might later date/have sex ~Max ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/339 "2022-01-05T18:32:37Z")
1. Yes. 2. Maybe, maybe not. “Spending time with” is too broad a concept for a simple answer, so taken literally, no, it’s not anywhere close to an absolute. But for sure it has to do with whether or not you want sex with them. That’s what we’re talking about. The title of the thread includes the term “sexual preferences.” It does not include “spending-time-with preferences.” Sexual autonomy is an absolute. Your body is all you are. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544/340 "2022-01-05T19:10:56Z")
Say I know Alice and Bob. I have to choose whether to spend my day with one of them. Both prospects seem equally appealing at first. They are both great people asking me to go somewhere fun. But because I find Alice sexually attractive there is the added benefit that spending more time with her might evolve into a romantic relationship. So I make the decision to spend the day with Alice, and am conscious that the whole decision turns on the fact that I find her sexually attractive and find Bob sexually unattractive. I am not intending to have sex with her today and probably am not consciously thinking of having sex at all, but it does cross my mind that my finding her sexually attractive is a necessary step in choosing to spend the day with her rather than Bob. It’s not clear to me whether my decision “has to do with sexual autonomy” or if it is too far removed. ~Max [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sexual-preferences-make-one-a-bigot/948544.md?page=18)