Serious Rejection because of your Race, sexuality, etc.: Is it okay?

[Ninahaza]

I have always felt more attraction for black boys than whites generally,

what happened to me recently: I am a boy who carries a masculinity, but I am quite feminine in general, and I was meeting a boy which is also very feminine, so I decided that his personality was no longer attracting me as at first, because I did not know him completely, only a part, so I decided to let him go with his life, however much he was already loving me.

Aww

Sorry to hear, m8. We can only learn from our past experiences, right?

I know, depending on the person, i wish i could go back in time and either take back a few things i said which i regret heavily today, or go back and say a few things i wish i had said at the time.

I wish you all the best in your future endeavors!!!

 

[Myzozoa]

they just want to be allowed to have their fun while they browbeat you into not being able to have your fun and feeling a sense of power by getting you to do what they want you to do.

same as your parents right?

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

Telling you to eat your vegetables is different from telling you not to have a racial fetish or a racial unfetish

And you also need to read the stuff I said before that line

 

[Alan]

It is important that we take care with the feelings of another people so that we can not hurt just by our preferences

This is a ridiculous take, in my opinion. We aren't obligated to preconsider any stranger's feelings. Life offers two authentic experiences: pleasure and pain. One must exist for the other to also. Besides, as you pointed out in your post, you ended up hurting him as he was starting to catch feelings, so would it not have been better, in your point of view, to have simply pre-empted that and not made him to suffer that feeling?

Further, to add to your final point in your post, people fall in (what they think is) love for a variety of different reasons. Maybe it's how (s)he makes you feel, how successful (s)he is, their cultural bringing, the thing they do with their tongue. You can't assume everyone has the same outlook as you.

There is nothing explicitly offensive by having preferences. It is the offended who takes offense, not the offender who gives it.

 

[Mimas]

This is a ridiculous take, in my opinion. We aren't obligated to preconsider any stranger's feelings. Life offers two authentic experiences: pleasure and pain. One must exist for the other to also. Besides, as you pointed out in your post, you ended up hurting him as he was starting to catch feelings, so would it not have been better, in your point of view, to have simply pre-empted that and not made him to suffer that feeling?

Further, to add to your final point in your post, people fall in (what they think is) love for a variety of different reasons. Maybe it's how (s)he makes you feel, how successful (s)he is, their cultural bringing, the thing they do with their tongue. You can't assume everyone has the same outlook as you.

There is nothing explicitly offensive by having preferences. It is the offended who takes offense, not the offender who gives it.

Since it's my post, it's my opinion, okay? If you don't agree, there's no problem, I don't care.

 

[Myzozoa]

And you also need to read the stuff I said before that line

you mean your galaxy brain argument that having leisure time contradicts reaching ('maximizing'?) ones' (one's?) moral potential? i read it dw, and then how you followed from that that if someone isn't volunteering their time or being vegetarian then they have no legs to stand on when critiquing the moral worth of others' actions. I think I dated your argument in college tbh

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

If you are gonna tell someone else that they should stop pursuing sexual relations based on race preferences in order to have fun the way they want but then turn around and do other morally dubious things to have fun your way then no, you dont have a leg to stand on. Either we both have to change, or we both get to keep doing what we want. And its since its obvious that even if I change you are going to keep doing what you want to do anyway and not follow your own moral standards or have inexplicable double standards which allow you to do the things you want but not the things I want, then clearly you dont really care about the whole interracial fetish or aversion thing after all and I get to keep doing what I want. You just want to brow beat with an ideology. Im not admitting that anyone is correct about fetishes based on race being wrong or detrimental, but for the sake of just this post and only this post, I will. It isnt wrong, btw. Nobody has ever been made racist by a fetish or an anti-fetish, and people having them isnt gonna stop race relations from constantly improving like they have been, so it doesnt matter if you have them or not. In fact, the only thing that could possibly bring racism back is annoying people by telling them its wrong or that they have to be super sensitive and not overt about it.

 

[TheValkyries]

all of the morals of people left of me when combined show clear contradictions. This is because I'm actually very smart, and not because I have trouble distinguishing disparate groups because of my distance from their thoughts in my sociopolitical bubble. Also, objecting to animal cruelty and objecting to implicit racist biases is actually the exact same thing so if you don't do one you can't do the other. The only solution is not to care about being better and just convincing yourself that actually you're unimprovable.

 

[QuickBH]

I want to have kids sometime and I'm sure as hell not going to get that with another dude. I also want my kids to not have identity crisis' and to have some sort of connection with their family. relationships are by definition exclusionary, there is no issue

 

[Machoke]

I don't think attraction can ever be offensive by default, because it's not an action- it's just a feeling. Feelings aren't offensive- actions are.
The way you communicate your feelings can be offensive however.
I'm Cuban. Let's say I like someone and I tell 'em. Then they tell me "I'm not interested in you." Perhaps the reason is they don't feel an attraction to me partially because I'm Cuban. Well, I wouldn't know that so there was no offense taken, I can just take the message and I'll just move on.
Suppose they had said "No, I don't like you, Cubans are gross lol." Well- now that is pretty offensive to say.

So no, attraction in itself is not offensive.
It can, however, be influenced! The very things that influence your attraction can indeed be offensive things. And honestly, I think it's good practice to question your preferences when it comes to attraction. When I was younger and I grew up in a insular, bubbled community of pretty much only Cubans, I was not attracted to non-Cubans. This was partially because of stereotypes I had about other people and standards I had unintentionally internalized.

It's good to ask yourself "Why am I not attracted to X group of people?"
I asked myself that and found out that I had the wrong idea about what people of certain groups were like, and the more I questioned it the more I realized it was flawed thinking and unlearned it. Now, I don't only date Cubans and I am open to dating anyone of any ethnicity.

Plus humans are so diverse and you'd be surprised at the amount of variance that exists within groups. Using Cubans for example- some people might think "I don't like them, they're too loud" or "They have weird hair." Well... Cubans are not always loud and have many different looks and styles of hair.

So long story short, no- attraction in itself is not offensive. The way you communicate to others your attraction or lack thereof can be offensive- but honestly just use common sense and be respectful and you're good, just as in any situation. Attraction can be influenced by offensive ideas floating around that stereotype groups, and it can be unlearned and changed over time especially if you question your attraction.

Also, this doesn't apply to sexuality as that's a diff topic altogether. I mean things like ethnicity/race/other group classifiers etc

 

[faint]

It's completely fine and normal to have preferences in a partner and different people are going to find different things attractive. That said, people that say things like "I don't find [race] attractive" are either:

a) racist
b) possess severe biases
c) have little exposure to said race
d) all of the above

It's really quite ignorant to speak in absolutes when it comes to attractiveness regarding specific traits. I have a major attraction to a specific body type and aesthetic but if I were to pretend that is the ONLY thing I find attractive, I would be lying. I would argue the same principles apply to gender.

 

[Tenshi]

I don't think I have much to add here in terms of the race thing. tl;dr preferences aren't inherently racist but you use your attraction to specific things as a justification for racism. I do however want to make a small comment on sexuality though, obviously a straight guy isn't going to be attracted to other men but bisexuality is important to address here. (though please mind that I'm not the most eloquent speaker)

Specifically my point is to mention the bias and stigmas against them. Bi erasure is a completely different subject fit for a different place, but there is a huge problem they face in dating due to stereotypes. It's insanely common that they're seen as confused or even overtly promiscuous(hypersexuality) and disloyal, in my experience I've found that it leads to a lot of bis to say they're gay/straight to avoid the stigmas of being a cheater. It goes without saying that this isn't okay, especially as it's shockingly present in the LGBTQ+ community that they're a part of.

I just wanted to add that lil tidbit just to say that even though sexuality is a matter beyond attraction preferences, I think a straight woman/gay guy refusing to date a bi guy because he's...bi is an implicitly discriminatory case that I don't see a justification for.

 

[Mimas]

This topic made me think about Grindr filters, if someone don't know, Grindr is an app for relationship between men only. Well, there we have the filters that you can choose for just appear people that follow that filter and there's the race filters: black, white, anyway. I started to talk with some friends about it, for me it's super different when I see someone saying for example: "I don't like effeminate boys" and "I don't like black boys", since a boy can be black and at the same time not effeminate, but really masculine, so someone would just don't accept him because of his color? It's like, for me this is offensive, because it seems like the color is more important than how that boy usually act in the society. To be honest I can't imagine someone who isn't attracted by someone just because of the color, being white, black, yellow.. because there's millions of them, so, what is the main thing about it? it's the same to say about asians or infinite types of different people. It's just my opinion also, but for me the whole thing make no sense.

Edit: I said Tinder before, but I wanted to say Grindr, so now it's correct.

 

[Triangles]

It's never a good idea to rule out a whole demographic of people in who you would theoretically date, partly because you're limiting your options so much. If you have the mentality of ruling people out based on race, you're shutting out so many potential partners who could make you happy and might be just right for you, just because you've made a judgement about them before even encountering them. It's such a reductive and narrow minded viewpoint.

On the other extreme, one thing I really don't support is racial fetishes. Porn is really bad with this, especially with black men - sites like redacted dot com (you know the one I'm talking about) present such a warped sick version of the interracial relationship, something that should be natural and not seen as some spectacle. Racial fetishes are very often rooted in flat out racism.

I'm probably quite lucky myself because white is sort of the 'one size fits all' for straight guys in terms of what women usually like. I've never been rejected because of my race, only because of my terrible personality.

 

[Tenshi]

Grindr is a toxic shitshow of a hookup app who knew lol. Jokes aside, I feel like racial filters in general are kinda sus. That's the fine line of finding traits attractive(things that might be more common or nearly nonexistent with some races vs others) vs discriminating against people purely because of their race(like saying "I don't find <x race> attractive."

I don't buy anyone who says they don't like <x> because honestly there's millions of people and nobody looks the same even if they are of the same race, and if you're not willing to look past your bias then you're kinda racist imo. That being said I don't think there's an inherent problem with liking some races over others hence justification for a race filter, like just as an off hand example I'm most attracted to Hispanic men so I'd be slightly harder pressed going through looking for one vs being able to filter but on the other hand I'm attracted to men in general regardless of race even though I do tend to prefer Hispanic men. But that's true for me though, it's hard for me to just say that what I feel is the default for every person when it's likely not(as much as being attracted to people regardless of race is a pretty nice default to assume most if not everyone has).

I would say re:Grindr specifically, it's a hookup app. Like nobody is really looking to date there(albeit VERY rare cases) so I kinda get why people are more transparent about that(some dudes are brutal lol, it's honestly a really toxic app and highlights how bad the toxic hookup culture is in the gay community) I can see race filters being useful for guys who are looking for specific types of guys since they're only looking to yk, it'd be a waste of time going through guys that they're not looking for. That being said the whole shit like "don't message me if you're <x>" or "I don't like <y>" is toxic shit and def not acceptable imo but yea I think the issue is in the people who use their preferences to discriminate vs people who just have preferences, you can like a specific race more than others and still respect and like other people who don't fit in that category. As for Tinder since it's kinda relevant I could see the same thing happening but on a more subtle(but greater) extent because they're actually(usually) looking to date people. So I can see people being more stern about only looking for specific people but probably not saying "if you're <> I don't want u."

It's a bit of a nuanced area that I don't think has a super simple answer because preferences themselves aren't inherently racist but they can be used to perpetuate existing racism. Porn is a whole other mess that I don't even want to touch on but yes I agree, there are a fuck ton of problems with that industry in terms of sexism and racism, especially the constant fetishizing of race.

 

[Plague von Karma]

As a lot of people have said: while an extreme thing, there isn't anything necessarily wrong with not being attracted to certain demographics, and rejecting them. However, I also wouldn't be shocked if some instances of this are rooted in prejudice. There's no statistic for this kind of thing that I know of, and it's a subjective claim to make, but from what I've seen this is not uncommon.

So for an example on those who reject certain demographics, well, there's plenty. There are people out there who have been traumatised by people with specific features, and it can cause irreparable damage to the psyche. Say for instance, a domestic violence victim gains a phobia/fear/etc of the opposite sex. It may sound a bit weird to some, but it's a lot more common than you'd think. There's entire refuges here in the UK for people with exactly that problem. I wouldn't say this is misogyny or misandry, it's something else. Many people experiencing this issue may never date again, and you know what? Power to em.

I was an unintended victim of trans fetishism by a certain Smash player a couple months back, and it's such a disgusting thing. Never dated the guy, but he would absolutely show his "lust". He was hateful as fuck, and got off on slinging insults at me and seeing me suffer. He was so...warped. I was kind of scared of doing anything about it, or telling anyone, since he had a lot of friends. I did in the end though, and he got thoroughly reprimanded. Him and his mates would defend themselves saying it was just "his thing" but it certainly didn't go over well. Let's just say I was extremely scared of dating people for a while after that. It went away though, and I'm now in a great relationship!

Though as I said initially, it's certainly not uncommon for these kinds of things to be rooted in some kind of prejudice. One look at Twitter or 4Chan will show that. I doubt some people at Incel.co want to actually date a woman, rather they'd have a sex slave or something. Some of the posts there are super disturbing, but "society's rejects" would probably end up that way due to simply not knowing better. On another end of the spectrum, opening Twitter will probably show you a few misandrist tweets getting a few thousand likes, so there's that. Are these ok? Well, it all depends on the context. Is it an offhanded (and very, very distasteful) joke, or are they truly serious about this? If it's the latter, it's very questionable.

But eh, I'm rambling. I'm curious about what people have to say about this.