You missed the Cheerios ads from a few years back that caused quite a stir.
2013
2014
Just in case anyone’s reading this far and hasn’t noticed, this thread is a 17-year-old zombie. Pay particular attention if you’re planning to respond to a post from upthread.
Individual attraction is intensely personal, but also heavily related to the culture one is raised in – if media and peers tell you that curvy, “thick” women are attractive, there’s a great chance that you’ll grow up (assuming you’re attracted to women) being more attracted to curvy, “thick” women than women with other body shapes. If media and peers tell you that lighter skin, or more European-style facial features are more attractive, then there’s a great chance that you’ll be more attracted to those features than other features.
That’s all pretty mundane and expected, ISTM, even if it’s closely related to biases and bigotry in society (quite obviously, if women with X features/characteristics are considered unattractive in media and culture, then those women will be considered less attractive by many or most potential dates).
What I don’t really get is why anyone would want to proclaim who they find unattractive. Okay, you can find anyone unattractive that you want… by why do you need to tell everyone? Just results in hurt feelings, IMO, especially when it’s piled onto all the other things in society and culture and media which tell so many women how unattractive they are.
I think we all get why.
The hurt feelings are the why.
I find very few people unattractive. Most folks are neutral, a few are attractive and a very few are visually unappealing. I haven’t noticed this breaking along ethnic or racial lines.
A Pew Research poll found that 24% of black newlywed men are in interracial marriages whereas only 12% of black newlywed women are in interracial relationships.
Data from dating websites suggests that black women are rated more negatively than other women by all male groups. Including, to a minor degree, black men who appear to have a slight preference for Hispanic or Asian over black or white. Here’s another set.
This doesn’t mean that “attractiveness” was the primary driver for these numbers, of course. Could be cultural or economic factors at work as well.
I do remember the Cheerios commercial, but it hasn’t run recently. It could just be coincidence that I seem to always see white man/black woman couples, and that’s why it stood out to me. Doesn’t matter one way or another - I just find myself studying the mix of actor in ads and not paying attention to the products being pushed.
I know - my mind goes strange places sometimes…
I like the notion that “races aren’t attractive; individuals are”! Any group of people will have some very attractive people, some ugly people, and most will be ordinary-looking.
I don’t get this. How did you know these women were mixed? Did they tell you their ancestry or did you just surmise that they must be mixed because you found them attractive?
What’s is fascinating is that you are the same poster that made this assertionabout sex/gender in another IMHO thread. So I’m dying to know how you square your views about “black facial features” with your views about the distribution of traits within a population.
For your reference, take a look at thediversity of women you supposedly don’t find attractive.
Ouch.
I’ve read in several places over several years that from the US black womens’ perspective there’s a relative shortage of desirable black men. So many are incarcerated and so many more are not exactly good catches for whatever constellation of reasons. What’s left is kinda slim pickin’s and there’s certainly not enough to go around.
Add to that the idea that the relatively few remaining black men are now preferentially marrying away from black women and that’s going to cue a lot more lonely black women.
Not good for them at all.
The idea that there are “black facial features” is laughable, but your cite is a good one for those who don’t understand. Africa is a big place (it’s, like, a whole continent!!), and facial features vary all over the place.
And of course all American blacks (except the few who are recent immigrants form Africa) are “mixed”.
You don’t have to like this or approve of this, but most people of both genders have preferences and perceptions. You can argue all day whether these preferences are biological or cultural, and you can argue whether the perceptions are accurate and fair. But I think it’s safe to say that:
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Most men want a “feminine” woman, however that’s defined; and most women want a “masculine” man, however that’s defined.
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Certain ethnicities are perceived as more masculine and feminine than others. Those perceptions are often erroneous, but they exist.
To grossly oversimplify, men regard Asian women as very feminine, white women as somewhat less feminine, and African women as the least feminine of all. By contrast, African men are perceived as the most macho, white males as less macho, and Asian males as utterly UN-macho.
Laws, taboos and stigmas used to keep people from dating and marrying outside their own race. But today, people date and marry whomever they like. This results in winners AND losers.
BIG WINNERS: Black men and Asian women, who have their pick of a lot of new mates from other ethnicities.
BIG LOSERS: Asian men and black women. Asian men watch the most desirable Asian women date white men, and black women see the most desirable black men date white women.
CALL IT A DRAW: White men, who lose some white females to black males, but get access to Asian women. And white women, who get access to macho black men but lose some white males to Asian women.
Solution? Asian men should start dating Black women. Win win!
PS: Any man who dates an Asian woman because he THINKS he’s getting a frail, shy, submissive flower is a fool who’s in for a rude awakening!!!
And who suffers the most? All those poor black women he meets who pine for him in quiet desperation, knowing that their intense desire will never be returned, and who have no recourse but to bask in the radiance of his physical beauty and animal magnetism.
They must be… jeez, I don’t know. Countless!
I think a food analogy may be useful here - some people want nothing more than home cooking like their mother made when they were growing up - some people find themselves gravitating towards taste in a different cuisine, and some people turn out to want to try a little bit of everything.
I surmised there are black facial features from seeing many women who have very dark skin colour and similar features. I have seen on the other end, women who have less of those features and have lighter skin colour, that in some individual cases were self described as mixed.
Of course it is possible that I found a black women who was not mixed attractive, but from my experience that is very unlikely, as I have never thought someone is mixed and then later found out somehow they are not. Its the same way that you can tell if someone is asian and mixed with black or white or just asian. You are either blind or can just tell.
If you are seriously are telling me the only difference between white women and black women is the colour of the skin alone, you are deluded (/have an agenda). Or similarly if you are telling me the population of most countries did not share some facial features up to the beginning of globalization (and the majority does now too). Just look at the average face of a woman from any country, they are not the same, and usually the men of a particular country find the average face of their own country attractive.
I can’t find how to edit my post to add this.
I can see since you are relating the two you most likely have an agenda, or you don’t understand statistics.
So you are asking me how two of my views, which I clearly think go side by side, are conflicting, and you expect me to figure out the way in which you personally think they are conflicting?
Any group of people with a common genetic background has similar features. Women have female facial features more than male facial features. Women may also have male features, but if someone has 5-8 female features, they are far more likely to be a female than a male. People who have 5-8 facial features that are more common with black women are far more likely to be black women than asian men etc… I really have no idea what you are asking…
It is remarkable to me,whenever I see an African-American couple portrayed on a TV ad or drama: The Man is always darker than the woman.
Fun fact: Africa is not a country.
Another fun fact: there is more genetic diversity among “Africans” than among every other race put together.