Being sexually attracted to (or repulsed by) certain racial types: the acceptable face of racism?

it's not racist to not have found people from certain racial types attractive.

it may be racist to make remarks such as "i don't find asians attractive"

also, sexual attraction often has to do with familiarity, and so clearly you're more likely to be attracted to someone of your own culture (note the word culture i.e. not necessary race).

i think using "short-sighted" in a derogatory sense such as this is bigotted, arrogant discrimination against the disabled.

I think it's only fair to point that out.

(x-post: I meant COMIC and WITTY form.)

Well, I often find both Asian and black folks attractive, and it might be exactly because to me they're "exotic"; Finland's immigrant population is rather small, so the exoticness comes from that.

(personally I totally go for pale-skinned caucasians, but there ya go)

Yeah, I wasn't arguing with you, just wanted to make a point. But i think the familiarity thing has more to do with what sort of personalities you find attractive. For example, I might find Hindu women sexually attractive, but the cultural differences might be an obstacle (not an unpassable one, obviously) if I actually dated one.

ive noticed that there are some racial groups i find more sexually attractive in general (white/latin/oriental/mixed..i only seem to like black and latino men but i like mostly all girls)but not in any fetish way. i thnik its a problem when people will only go out with a certain race, esp. when it is not their own race or exclusively their own race. i have never been with a girl just because of their ethnic origim, i dont like the whale flava' craig-davidee thing. there is no racism in blanket statments such as 'x raced people are sexy. being repulsed by certain racial types would fall into racism, like when nazi's fell in love with jewish bitches and started feeling sick. white girls with thier slicked down hair and saying they only go out with black-boys..etc is just confusion.

as is she, whose species is unbeknownst to me
http://www.segginger.net/Star_Trek/Voyager/Kes02.JPG

i just don't know what to say about this.

anyway, Tuomas OTM. Since we're all talking in massive generalities here (crossing ethnic lines, reaffirming racial distinctions that are supposed to be outmoded)...we can generalize about personalities too. From my experience, the quite unattractive thing about "Asian women" is that culturally, they are not particularly informed, outspoken or humorous about social, cultural and political issues. This is a turn-off for me.

And as others have pointed out, the "aesthetics" of someone from Cambodia are utterly different from those of Japan. The "aesthetics" of hungry people are also very different from those of excessively made-up people. Leave politics out of it? How can you?

We're also not clear on whether we're talking about "Asian women" in Asian countries, or those in our first world countries. There is a world of difference.

i dunno about that. it is racism, it might just not be bad racism...

http://www.louisck.com/images/headshot2.gif

Any man who thinks that Asian women are subservient should try riding a crowded bus in Taipei or Hong Kong. They'll kick your hyper-masculine ass. Then spit on you. Not necessarily in that order.

i think the point is becoming clear..
it's not racist to not have found people from certain racial types attractive.

it may be racist to make remarks such as "i don't find asians attractive"

It's okay to think something but not to say it. Oh, now I get it. Yeah, that makes rhetorical sense. Okay. Huh? Are you serious?

SPOKEN: "I'm sorry Ms. Chen, we are unable to offer you the job/have sex with you at this time."

THOUGHT: "We don't hire/sleep with Asians. Ever."

THOUGHT: "We don't hire/sleep with Asians. Ever."

haha. er, actually, you didn't really get it

the point was, saying "i haven't encountered an asian woman whom i've found attractive" isn't necessarily racist. but to say "i find asian women unattractive" is.

the first is factual, the second is an ill-informed generalisation.

to assume that "ms. chen" is an asian/chinese name, is probably also racist but i guess you got that, anyway.

You may want to also see this thread of mine:

Making positive generalisations about people in other cultures/races - classic or dud?

I was lurking in an ILX chat room when a few British ILXors referred to curly hair as 'mingy'. Sorry, but that IS bigoted.

However, it would not be reasonable to ask the law, or an individual, to guarantee equality of result. (In fact, equality of opporunity is more or less a guarantee of inequality of result.) In other words, nobody would expect all actors in society to be entitled to exactly the same life experiences as all others, and even if we expected an open-minded person to be willing to consider marrying partners of all races, we wouldn't expect him or her to actually marry someone from every race, one after the other. At some point one leaves abstract principles (of equality) and makes a commitment to a particularity. One judges. One chooses. Choice is inevitable. It would be silly to say that every choice is a massive discrimination against the things unchosen.

Chen is one of the "lao bai xing" or old 100 names, one of the most common of Chinese surnames. To assume that "Chen" is a Chinese name is hardly racist, it is informed. To assume that Ms. Chen is Chinese may or may not be racist based on whether one is looking at the person or on the telephone. Even looking at the person, one might not be able to tell whether Ms. Chen were Chinese, but it would not be an ignorant racist assumption.

you fucker - those were the exact words I was going to use.