It is if she starts hating prog rock and starts liking rap music, which can and does happen.
My wife became a good Christian slowly over the course of our marriage, so we don’t watch horror movies together anymore, or anything rated R. Quite a drag. Still love her though, even though I don’t share her beliefs.
I have a problem with that mentality in general, ‘stamping out’, ie driving underground other people’s opinions which aren’t really one’s business. And the now omnipresent government is seldom really left out of anything in the end.
The valid reason that societal action against racism was extended from, for example, discriminatory laws to prohibiting discrimination at ‘private’ establishments like restaurants was a reasonable judgement what’s really private or public. A restaurant is owned privately, but accommodates the public. You can’t make any such argument, reasonably, about one person’s choice of another as romantic partner.
But obviously it depends to some degree. Does a person say they don’t want to date white people 'because white people are worthless *&$#‘s’? I don’t have any problem shunning people who are bigots in the old fashioned sense of having actual animus toward other people because they belong to a certain racial, ethnic, religious etc group. But the suggestion seems to be to extend that to questions of one’s cup of tea in a very personal choice. It frankly strikes me as the part of the increasingly overbearing attitude of the PC left (although to me the idiocy of the Trumpist reaction to that is just as depressing).
I would never date a person who would date a person like me.
But what about what I said? “I thought so and so was so hot, but when I found out she was a black chick, it was an instant turn-off”.
I think that nowadays a lot of people waste a lot of good energy being obsessed with race and racism. People like what they like. What are you going to do, shame someone into dating a person that they have no attraction to? I dunno…
I don’t think that it is such a big deal to prefer one race / ethnicity over another, as long as you don’t go on and on about it, saying that a group of people squicks you out, that they disgust you, or something to that effect. That would be rude and tacky!
I must say, I was born in 1960 and was raised in the Nashville vicinity. When my friends and I hit puberty, most of us – black, white, Indian, or whatever – had an “attractive women come in all colors” attitude. One of my pals had a thing for Asian girls. If someone wanted to date inter-racially, it was no big deal. If they wanted to stay within their ethnicity, that wasn’t a big deal, either.
I’m white, and I dated a black girl in college, and a few years beyond. (My longest relationship.) I didn’t date her because she was black, though. I dated her because I liked her, we shared some interests, plus I thought that she was very pretty. We got along fine for a good, long while.
I suppose that one can start a relationship purely because of race, but I doubt that can sustain anything long-term. Ya gotta remember that this person is one unique individual, not just a member of a group!
That particular scenario strikes me as rather, well, unusual. Perhaps that person should examine their behavior in other areas of life. Doesn’t bother me in terms of whom they are attracted to, however. Attraction can turn off based on a lot of arbitrary things.
If you base it on race, not the individual, you’re being a racist. If it’s just more that you find certain things more attractive that tend to be clustered in certain races? That doesn’t have to have a racial component at all. I like dark hair, eyes, and skin. This doesn’t rule out any races. If you really liked light hair, eyes, and skin, that’s harder to find, sometimes much much harder, in some populations.
What we find attractive is largely a result of socialization, so it can reveal biases. But no one is such a prize that having them voluntarily remove themselves as a possible mate is a tragedy. It’s hard to say that the member of the unfavored race is losing at all. On the contrary, actually.
It’s “wrong” to be a racist. If your preferences reveal racism, then they are wrong. If they don’t, they aren’t. If you can’t tell, do some self-assessment. But in the end, the only person missing out is you.
This sounds like hair-splitting.
If I find epicanthic folds a major turn on for me and women without it are unattractive to me, I am not allowed to say I only like Asians; I have to say I only like women with epicanthic folds. That’s ridiculous.
But there are Asians without epicanthic folds. Tons of them. And there are non-Asians who have them, or use make-up to accentuate natural features that look very similar.
To me, if your attraction to a person is based on knowledge of their race, that’s racist. That doesn’t mean you should force yourself to date them as a sort of penance, but how is there not an element of racism in such a statement?
Again, there are lots of people that could “pass” for Asian or Hispanic or Black or white without any sort of deliberate effort. If you need that outside knowledge to figure out if you are attracted, that’s the social concept of race working on your personality–what else could it be?
It’s a difficult question, and I am very much of the opinion that someone can choose to date or not date someone for whatever absolutely arbitrary reasons that they don’t need to justify at all. But that article does have a good point:
Someone really liking tall blond guys or tattooed muscle guys or something else like that is a preference. But someone saying “no Asians” isn’t really a preference based on physical appearance since Asian guys can vary so much. Same with any other race.
I’m guessing it’s a bigger deal for people who consistently have a harder time finding dates because people are dismissing them because of their race. I wouldn’t shame or force someone into dating someone else that they weren’t interested in, it wouldn’t end up well for either person, but I do think it’s a good topic for discussion.
Does it make me sexist if I only date women?
The heart wants what it wants. Or in this case, the act of who you lust for is difficult to control.
I don’t think an online dating website is an accurate reflection of who people prefer. Selecting online partners is highly correlated to appearance. Many potential dates you meet in real life aren’t snap decisions made on physical appearance. Frequently people know each other from work, social groups, church or mutual friends before going out on a date. Attraction can blossom through casual contact despite what someone tells themselves about race or other physical attributes.
Are you honestly saying that I am the subject of “sexism/genderism” because lesbians don’t find me (a male) sexually attractive? Because that is how that reads - to me.
If that is what you are saying then I’m afraid I must disagree. I find white skin attractive (the nearer to milk-white the better.) As the skin tone darkens it becomes less attractive to me. That isn’t racism or anything like that it is preference.
I’ve been justifiably called a great number of things in my time but racist is not one of them.
I’d tend to agree with you. If she is attractive when I think she is latina then she is equally attractive whether she be light-skinned black, well-tanned white or any other variation.
Well said.
Most people aren’t as absolute in real life on preferences, but if they have strong preferences in online dating they still likely have them in real life. A guy who puts “no Asians” on his profile isn’t going to shun any Asians he sees in his day to day life, but if he’s at a party he’ll likely go talk to the cute white guy at the bar instead of the cute Japanese guy. Or if a friends wants to set him up, he’ll be more likely to say yes to being set up with a Chad instead of a Wei.
You can’t take information from online dating profiles as an absolute measure of how people think, but I think it is an indicator.
Yes.
If you don’t date Asian men because you think they are too good at math, that’s racist. If you are attracted to pale skin, then probably not racist. Given the levels of racism in all sorts of other human endeavors, like employment, my guess is that a lot of the racial bias in dating comes from old-fashioned straight-up racist stereotypes that have little or no connection to physical attraction.
I also think conversations about racism would be greatly improved if we stopped asking “Is X racist?” and asked instead “how racist is X, if any?” In a society where race has been such a cornerstone of social mores, lots of things are Racist 1 or Racist 2, even when they’re not Racist 9. If you have an implicit bias by which you judge black teenage boys to be older than they actually are, that’s racist. Maybe we’d call it Racist 2. If you’re a member of the KKK, that’s Racist 9. Grouping them together isn’t that helpful, especially since a whole lot of people think that if something isn’t Racist 9, then it’s not racist at all because that word must be reserved for pure evil.
And how many people do you have sex with who aren’t particular at all?
I’m sorry but I find this absolutely ludicrous. “Racist” means something far more than “choosing according to race.” A racist is a mindset supported by a set of actions that has far greater implications than who you want to date.
If I were producing a big budget movie based on the life story of Joe Louis, I would naturally want the lead role to be filled by a tall, muscular black actor. I would want the role of Max Schmeling to be played by a big white guy, preferably one with dark hair (he kind of looked like Josh Brolin, actually.) Those are choices made on race; are they racist? Am I wrong in wanting those roles to be filled by people whose appearance fits the race checklists, or am I a racist, and is that wrong?
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