# Inter-racial dating and asian men **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 29, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103 "2012-01-29T19:49:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![doubled](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@doubled](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doubled)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/1 "2012-01-29T19:49:40Z")
At least in big US cities like New York and Chicago, the sight of inter-racial couples (white man, asian woman) is extremely common. Go to any high-end restaurant for dinner and you’ll see several white man/asian woman couples on any given night. But the reverse situation – an asian man dating a white woman? It does happen, but it seems to be much much rarer than the other way around. This [census bureau chart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States#Census_Bureau_statistics) confirms there are twice as many white man/asian female marriages as the reverse. Granted, some of that is probably due to american soldiers bringing home “war brides” from japan after WW2 and from vietnam/korea after those wars. But even among younger people who were born and raised in the US, there seems to be far more white man/asian female couples than the other way around. So given that a large number of asian-american women marry white men, thereby “removing” them from the dating pool and leaving an “oversupply” of single asian men; are there any statistics on who asian-american men marry? Or is there just a significant imbalance in the number of asian-american men who never marry? Or am I simply underestimating the number of inter-racial couples with an asian-american man? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/2 "2012-01-29T19:57:41Z")
And at least in my experience, it’s exactly the opposite with whites/blacks. Lots of white women with black men, not so many vice-versa. > [@doubled](#): > > [A]re there any statistics on who asian-american men marry? Each other? ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/3 "2012-01-29T20:06:05Z")
The data collected by [okcupid](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/) on such phenomena might be of interest. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/4 "2012-01-29T20:06:14Z")
A quick google found [a few sites](http://interracialintersection.com/black-womens-guide-to-meeting-asian/) encouraging [black women to approach](http://interracialintersection.com/black-womens-guide-to-meeting-asian/) [asian men](http://www.lifeinkorea.com/boards/read.cfm?BoardID=19&MsgID=2378). From what I read there, and here’s painting with a _very_ broad brush, Asian men are a bit racist when it comes to black women. Perhaps Asian men in the West marry women from already [dwindling supply in Asia](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5953508/ns/world_news/t/china-grapples-legacy-its-missing-girls/), so the poorer men back in China and India are the ones really left wifeless? ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/5 "2012-01-29T20:38:29Z")
I am a white man dating an asian man. Does that count for anything? ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/6 "2012-01-29T20:49:11Z")
This is an interesting question. My Dads second wife was Asian, and she had a hugh family in the US. Almost all of the women, except for the elders, were married to white men. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/7 "2012-01-29T20:50:44Z")
So white men and Asian women date, because Asian women are hotter than white women, while white men are hotter than Asian men. White women and black men date because black men are hotter than white men, while white women are hotter than black women. Taking this into consideration, the hottest possible coupling would just eschew the Caucasian middleman all together, and hook up the black men and Asian women. Is that common, though? (I guess in this scenario, the Asian men would end up dating the black women with neither party enjoying it, while the white men and white women would just be SOL and get stuck with each other…) ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/8 "2012-01-29T21:20:05Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I am a white man dating an asian man. Does that count for anything? Depends. Is the Asian man the more “femme” of you two? If so, you’re just perpetuating the usual stereotypes, even while gay. 🙂 When this question came up in earlier threads, it was mentioned that OK-Cupid had a [real interesting blog on real-life racism in on-line dating.](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/) > [@](#): > > Black women write back the most. Whether it’s due to talkativeness, loneliness, or a sense of plain decency, black women are by far the most likely to respond to a first contact attempt. > > White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. > > Men don’t write black women back. Or rather, they write them back far less often than they should. Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder. > > White guys respond less overall. The average reply rate of non-white males is 48.1%, while white guys’ is only 40.5%. Basically, they write back about 20% less often. It’s ironic that white guys are worst responders, because as we saw above they in turn get the most replies. That has apparently made them very self-absorbed. ---
**Author:** ![doubled](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@doubled](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doubled)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/9 "2012-01-29T22:07:14Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > The data collected by [okcupid](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/) on such phenomena might be of interest. Yes, that confirms that (in america) white man/asian woman couples are much more common than the reverse. But it still doesn’t answer the question of what happens to all the ‘surplus’ asian men. The OKCupid article just shows reply rates to emails, which isn’t the same thing as marriage of course; but if we assume those numbers are accurate, they imply there should be a disproportionately large number of single asian-american men (at least compared to the number of asian-american women). Is that in fact the case? Are there any statistics showing a large number of unmarried asian men in america? ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/10 "2012-01-29T22:29:22Z")
It’s kinda stood out to me since moving to Seattle from China less than 2 years ago that there are a lot more White female -Asian male pairings than when I left the US 30 years ago. There are still a lot more White male - Asian female couples (including my marital status). But I’ve noticed the pendulum swinging. Where I’ve really noticed it is among elementary school teachers - 2 out of 3 teachers that my kids currently have are married to Asian men. Drewtwo99 - interesting question. Ancedotally, are there more white-Asian pairings in the gay community than the broader community? My niece (middle school teacher - confirmation bias) is white and her girlfriend is Japanese American. I’ve got several white female colleagues with Asia significant others (and Washington State is on track to legalize same sex marriage - go Washington!). ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/11 "2012-01-30T00:46:40Z")
Something that might have bearing on the numbers of Asian-American women available at the younger end of the dating pool is the adoption rate of Chinese girls over the past twenty or so years. The one-kid-per-couple policy, when paired with the cultural preferance for having a son left many of them in orphanages, to be adopted internationally. Just among my own aquaintances and friends, there are six couples who have adopted daughters from China, with two couples adopting two daughters each. Some of these young women are now college age. The “war bride” thing would be a factor for many couples older than that. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/12 "2012-01-30T00:55:41Z")
> [@doubled](#): > > At least in big US cities like New York and Chicago, the sight of inter-racial couples (white man, asian woman) is extremely common. Go to any high-end restaurant for dinner and you’ll see several white man/asian woman couples on any given night. But the reverse situation – an asian man dating a white woman? It does happen, but it seems to be much much rarer than the other way around. > This [census bureau chart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States#Census_Bureau_statistics) confirms there are twice as many white man/asian female marriages as the reverse. Granted, some of that is probably due to american soldiers bringing home “war brides” from japan after WW2 and from vietnam/korea after those wars. But even among younger people who were born and raised in the US, there seems to be far more white man/asian female couples than the other way around. > > So given that a large number of asian-american women marry white men, thereby “removing” them from the dating pool and leaving an “oversupply” of single asian men; are there any statistics on who asian-american men marry? Or is there just a significant imbalance in the number of asian-american men who never marry? Or am I simply underestimating the number of inter-racial couples with an asian-american man? Asian male - white female couples are not nearly as rare as they used to be. I know several of them personally. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/13 "2012-01-30T01:58:20Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > Depends. Is the Asian man the more “femme” of you two? If so, you’re just perpetuating the usual stereotypes, even while gay. 🙂 > > When this question came up in earlier threads, it was mentioned that OK-Cupid had a [real interesting blog on real-life racism in on-line dating.](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/) Haha no, we’re both very average guys. ---
**Author:** ![Dahnlor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahnlor/32/533_2.png) [@Dahnlor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahnlor)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/14 "2012-01-30T04:36:30Z")
> [@doubled](#): > > Yes … But it still doesn’t answer the question of what happens to all the ‘surplus’ asian men. Perhaps marrying their [video games](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/23/sal-9000-man-to-marry-vir_n_367579.html)? ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/15 "2012-01-30T04:43:24Z")
An aside but its sexual preference for a race really “racism”? Anyway something you should consider as well is that marriage is temporary a lot of times, a interracial couple does not mean someone is permanently out of the dating pool. AND at least for couples with a foreign citizen spouse what are the stats on the required immigration? Perhaps women are more likely to immigrate to their husband’s home nation. ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/16 "2012-01-30T05:07:55Z")
I was looking for a site with information, and did not find statistics or any great research on the subject so far. This one seems kind of lame, but I thought I would share it anyway: [www.asiancemagazine.com/content/white-man-versus-asian-manwww.asiancemagazine](http://www.asiancemagazine.com/content/white-man-versus-asian-manwww.asiancemagazine) ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/17 "2012-01-30T06:25:57Z")
Bizarre. I thought I wrote this reply, but I guess not so I’m trying again… In the April 2011 National Geographic print issue, they talked about this in a column. Here’s the [blog version](http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2011/04/marrying-out.html) (not sure if it’s full length). The [infographic there of interracial marriages in the US in 2008](http://blogs.ngm.com/.a/6a00e0098226918833014e87c6720a970d-pi) is particularly interesting. It suggests that Asian men are marrying, more than any other interracial group, Hispanic women. In no interracial groupings are there more Asian grooms than brides, so that still leaves the question of “So who DO they marry?” unanswered. For that, Wikipedia has better info (of course): > **[Interracial marriage in the United States | Census Bureau statistics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States#Census_Bureau_statistics)** > > The number of interracial marriages has steadily continued to increase since the 1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia, but also continues to represent an absolute minority among the total number of wed couples. According to Pew Research, among all newlyweds, intermarried pairings were primarily White-Hispanic (43.3%) as compared to White-Asian (14.4%), White-Black (11.9%), and Other Combinations (30.4%). According to the United States Census Bureau, the number of interracially married ... Asian men, as a percentage, marry: Asian women: 91% White women: 7% Other: 0.9% Black women: 0.3% I looked at some other stats from the American Community Survey, and in terms of percentage of Asian men 15 and older who have never married, it didn’t seem to vary significantly from other racial groups – something around 30% to 35% for all the groups. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/18 "2012-01-30T07:27:58Z")
Interesting and relevant article [here](http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/asian/family_lifestyle_traditions/le_interracial_dating.asp): It doesn’t answer the OP’s question, but it distinguishes between different Asian nationalities: > [@](#): > > …these stats tell us is that among these six Asian American ethnic groups, among husbands, the groups that are most likely to intermarry with Whites are Filipinos and Japanese while among wives, it’s Japanese and Koreans. Although the numbers for intermarriage with Blacks and Hispanics/Latinos are low, Asians who are most likely to intermarry with Blacks are Japanese American husbands and Asian Indian wives, while Filipino Americans (husbands and wives) are most likely to intermarry with Hispanics/Latinos. Those who are most likely to marry within their own ethnic group are Vietnamese Americans (husbands and wives) while Japanese Americans (husbands and wives) are most likely to marry another Asian American (outside their own ethnic group). ---
**Author:** ![EdwardLost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@EdwardLost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwardLost)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/19 "2012-01-31T01:31:28Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Anyway something you should consider as well is that marriage is temporary a lot of times, a interracial couple does not mean someone is permanently out of the dating pool. I’ve told the folks back home (semi-seriously) that here in Silicon Valley a white guy might date around with women of different races, but when it comes time to settle down and marry, he’ll find himself a nice Asian woman. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103/20 "2012-01-31T05:28:13Z")
> [@grude](#): > > An aside but its sexual preference for a race really “racism”? Well, it depends on _why_. “I just think they look hot” isn’t any more racist than liking redheads; but “I don’t date _ **X** _ because they are all criminals/rapists/liars/imperialists/stupid” is racist. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-dating-and-asian-men/611103.md?page=2)