LGBTAI+ Question and Discussion Thread IV: [Citation Needed]

[Raistlin1040]

Where was I policing someone's preferences? At no point did I say anyone was obligated to ignore their preferences, nor did I say that having preferences was some horrible thing. All I said was that people should be more contemplative about their own preferences. I didn't even say that wholesale re-evaluating someone as a viable romance option was a bad thing. If you're attracted to someone, and then they turn out to be a jerk, yes, absolutely you should move them from the "people I want to date" to "people I don't want to date" category. If someone has radically different beliefs from you, and it's irreconcilable, it doesn't matter how attracted you are to them, you're probably not a good fit.

Something like differing political beliefs is fair game, because it's saying "this person and I disagree on many fundamental levels about the way the world should look and be run." Age certainly can be, if it's a case of "this person has experience and power in the relationship that I don't have, and I think that's unhealthy." Height is... not a good reason not to date someone, and I think that's kind of shallow, yes, but again, the point I was making was about systemic discrimination and societal attitudes, and while short men and tall women have gotten the stick at times, height is not comparable to race or sexuality or gender identity.

It's fine to re-evaluate someone as a romantic partner. It's fine to change your mind. It's fine to decide that, despite your surface-level physical attraction, you're not interested. Usually, though, those thoughts are rooted in a specific conflict. If you hit it off with someone in a chatroom, and were invested and interested in them, and then learned months later that they were a different ethnicity from you and that was enough to cool your interest... I have an interest in where that comes from. It doesn't naturally follow the way that "this person is extreme about their religion, and I won't convert" does, or "this person holds their political beliefs strongly and refuses to listen to opposing opinions" does. If you knew someone casually, thought they were cool and interesting and attractive, and then learned they were trans and decided that you weren't interested in them anymore, I'm interested in that.

@Liquor Box

No, I wasn't saying attraction was a decision, I was saying the opposite, that it isn't, but one's action in response to attraction is. If you change your action when your attraction hasn't changed, then there must be a reason for it, and something like "they're trans" doesn't adequately explain the reason for that change (in my opinion)... unless it's paired with transphobic viewpoints, like seeing trans people as their assigned-at-birth gender, or fearing being gay or something.

My core argument, in as clear a way as I can make it (and also in a way that's gonna get me flamed by someone or other, I'm sure) is that broader society is discriminatory against people who do not fall in line with the norm, and that societal thought gets distilled down into individual people by way of participating in society. Not every straight person is homophobic, but every straight person exists in a society that contains homophobic elements, and subconsciously picks up on those elements, and has to learn to unlearn them. Homophobic, transphobic, sexist, racist, ableist, classist thought permeates through society, and if it doesn't directly affect you, you might not immediately think to go against it.

This is not a condemnation of straight people, or white people, or men, or whoever. It's not saying they're bad people, or do bad things. It's just pointing out that homophobia, for example, is harder to see when you're straight. Many a well-meaning straight person has expressed a viewpoint like "I am fine with gay people, I just don't want to see two men kiss," or something like that. That doesn't mean they're necessarily homophobic, but that they experience a society where two men kissing is not normalized. It's othered. It's aberrant. It's even dangerous. And those are homophobic things that society as a whole has perpetuated, and an individual straight person may experience discomfort due to. If they think about it, however, they might realize that it's not strange or gross or weird, and that their discomfort was unwarranted.

Obviously, there are fashion trends and trendsetters trying to make money off of specific looks, which can include things like hair or eye color, but those things are fleeting. You may be influenced by a societal preference for a certain standard of beauty like blonde hair, but the pendulum is just as likely to swing back the other way, and the people who try to push those agendas are all in competition and trying to set the trends themselves anyway. Even if there is some current "dominant" model for hair and eye color, there are so many visible attractive people that the pressure is well-distributed. If you have a personal preference for green eyes, I'm not going to argue with you. It's a quirk of yours. You think they look nice. Whatever the reason, you like green eyes, but that is your preference. It hasn't really been forced upon you by society (or at least, not necessarily any stronger than any other preference).

When it comes to marginalized groups, my core point is that the things a person might claim as their personal preference, as it relates to race and gender, very often line up with the negative social understandings of those things. If you claim to not be interested in black people, is it because you aren't aesthetically attracted to an individual black person, or is it because you've unconsciously absorbed certain negative cultural beliefs and opinions about blackness, that black people are uneducated, that black people are poor, that black people are bad partners, that they're criminals, that they're lazy, that they're dangerous? If you wouldn't date a trans person, is it because you don't find an individual trans person attractive, or is it because you've been influenced by decades of media showing trans women as men in dresses, as punchlines, as devious rapists out to "trick" men, as the villain in Silence of the Lambs, as campy villains in all sorts of films, as mentally ill, etc. while not showing trans men at all (to the point that many people seem to forget they exist)? Even if you don't hold those strong, prejudiced beliefs, you're influenced by having grown up and lived around them, and that might be affecting your "preference" without you realizing.

Of course, no one can say that for sure on your behalf. I can't say "you're racist for not dating black people," because I can't know something like that. However, my belief is that the visceral repulsion that some people experience when the idea is floated of romance or intimacy with a member of a marginalized group, and the fact that those same marginalized groups that are the ones that are consistently historically discriminated against, are not coincidental. This unconscious biases are countered by introspection, and by trying to understand other viewpoints, and also simply experiencing more of the world, and meeting different kinds of people. 100 years ago, the amount of white people who would claim to find black people attractive was almost assuredly far less, as a proportion. I don't think there has been some evolutionary shift in that century, where now somehow non-black people are suddenly way more attracted to black people. Rather, I think some (though certainly not all) of the social attitudes and conditioning (in white society) that made black people seem unattractive to white people, has begun to erode. Black people didn't change, and white attraction didn't change (as history will tell us, white people often found black people very attractive, while at the same time abusing them and denying them rights). Instead, as racist thought and ideology became somewhat less pervasive, fewer people were influenced by it.

If I have a thesis statement, this is basically it. Social norms and conventions promoting the aesthetic value of things like hair color, eye color, hair style, clothing style, etc. are usually weak enough and often cyclical enough that a person's individual preference regarding these attributes can be almost wholly attributed to their personal tastes. Social pressure regarding the value (aesthetic or otherwise) of marginalized people is much stronger, so much so that its influence over people's tastes and preferences can't be ignored. For this reason, one should question one's individual preferences when they conform to society's historical hierarchies, as the preferences may be at least partially the result of those hierarchies, rather than a truly random individual variance in taste.

And that's all I think I'm going to say on the matter.

[Florian]

@Raistlin1040:

This is a false equivalency thing. Preference of one thing is not the equivalent of hate of another thing.

I'm going to put my hand up as part of the "strong preference for bio kids" crowd. I very much want my own children someday, and I very much want them to be formed from mine and my partner's genes. An inability to do that wouldn't be a total deal breaker for me, but it would be a hefty negative factor. I would have to be massively into someone to look past it.

Hm, yeah. I've reached the age category when you've got to be a bit more honest about things, you know, like being a bit more jaded about that whole "love" thing and accepting that this is the last chance for kids and a "classic" family, also at heaving said kids out of the house again before retirement age.

[Razade]

{scrubbed}

[super dark33]

Lets not get into that arguement, its not a good arguement.



I have a question:

Im a non binary person who lives in a language that has literally no gender neutrality. what should i do to still somehow de-genderify myself in that framework?

[Florian]

Im a non binary person who lives in a language that has literally no gender neutrality. what should i do to still somehow de-genderify myself in that framework?

That depends on the exakt language we're talking about.

[Razade]

That depends on the exakt language we're talking about.

Hebrew and Arabic if I am remembering correctly for dark333. They live in Jerusalem if I recall.

[Raistlin1040]

Im a non binary person who lives in a language that has literally no gender neutrality. what should i do to still somehow de-genderify myself in that framework?

I found this article that you might be interested in but if you're referring specifically to your pronouns and self-referral, rather than your presentation, you'll probably find better resources in your own language. There might be some precedent for the queer community in your country for just that thing.

If there isn't, then it presents more of an obstacle. Constructed pronouns are a thing in English, but a lot of people are on-the-fence about them, and I'm not sure about how much that idea has spread to other languages.. Constant usage of a person's name along the lines of the following conversation

"Have you seen Jane?"
"Yes, Jane just left. Do you need to talk to Jane?"
"Yeah, Jane left Jane's keys in Jane's office, so I was going to give them to Jane before Jane left."

is incredibly awkward and difficult in English, but might not necessarily be so in other languages, or might allow for dropping of pronouns entirely. That may be an option, to ask for people to refer to you by your name sort of exclusively rather than by a pronoun. Alternating between masculine and feminine pronouns could potentially work too, but my concern there would be that people would probably just default to the pronoun that aligns with your assigned-at-birth gender, and that might not really help you feel more supported in your identity.

What language do you speak, by the way?

[super dark33]

I found this article that you might be interested in but if you're referring specifically to your pronouns and self-referral, rather than your presentation, you'll probably find better resources in your own language. There might be some precedent for the queer community in your country for just that thing.

If there isn't, then it presents more of an obstacle. Constructed pronouns are a thing in English, but a lot of people are on-the-fence about them, and I'm not sure about how much that idea has spread to other languages.. Constant usage of a person's name along the lines of the following conversation

"Have you seen Jane?"
"Yes, Jane just left. Do you need to talk to Jane?"
"Yeah, Jane left Jane's keys in Jane's office, so I was going to give them to Jane before Jane left."

is incredibly awkward and difficult in English, but might not necessarily be so in other languages, or might allow for dropping of pronouns entirely. That may be an option, to ask for people to refer to you by your name sort of exclusively rather than by a pronoun. Alternating between masculine and feminine pronouns could potentially work too, but my concern there would be that people would probably just default to the pronoun that aligns with your assigned-at-birth gender, and that might not really help you feel more supported in your identity.

What language do you speak, by the way?

Hebrew and Arabic if I am remembering correctly for dark333. They live in Jerusalem if I recall.

Close, i speak hebrew and reside slightly more westwards to jerusalem in what is considered a Big Distance in this country.


Thanks for the article!

[lio45]

Where was I policing someone's preferences? At no point did I say anyone was obligated to ignore their preferences, nor did I say that having preferences was some horrible thing. All I said was that people should be more contemplative about their own preferences.

Fair enough, no harm in that, but my point is that EVEN after people do this open-mindedly, in several cases they're still going to have "weird" fetishes, and that's not their fault.

If learning that your red hair is dyed rather than natural is enough to make someone go from horny to markedly less horny, that's not really that person's fault.

Basically, that person went through your process already: "She's really a great match and I really enjoy her company, am I sure I can't live with her not being a natural redhead? This fetish of mine is silly and I should will it away, it would be liberating if I managed to..."

But yeah, I don't think there's anyone out there unreasonable enough to disagree with your statement "people should be more contemplative about their own preferences". The point of "my side" of the argument has always been that DESPITE that openness, success in altering preferences is not always guaranteed.

The textbook example being someone gay a century ago. They could try to "rethink their preferences"; they were well aware that their lives would be much easier if they succeeded in doing that.

[The Extinguisher]

Oh yay its my favourite topic again :/

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding in these discussions, deliberate or not. No one is trying to force anyone to date, have sex with, whatever, anyone. But when we say that not wanting to date "trans people" (as opposed to "a trans person") transphobic, its an attempt to get you to examine why you think like that and understand what is the underlying base.

And in the end it comes back to the fact that people are unwilling to accept that oppression is systemic and everyone is guilty of it. We've been sold a narrative of The Oppressor as a villian that it becomes almost impossible to identify when that oppression benefits us, and harder still to push back against it. Its also why there is a difference between a cis person saying "i wont date trans people" and a trans person saying they wont date cis people. Theres a power imbalance there that benefits all cis people whether they are aware of it or not

Again, no one wants to force you to date anyone. Just recognize where your preference is coming from and understand the systemic inequalities it enforces

[Chen]

There's a difference between not wanting to date someone and not being attracted to someone too. The only legitimate line of thought I can see regarding "I don't date trans people" would be the biological child one, which has been mentioned. Assuming of course the goal is to go from dating to marriage (or whatever) and then to produce children. If it was simply dating to have fun and not leading to any of that I'd say the fact that they are trans is irrelevant provided there's no genital issues (i.e., post-op). The same basically goes for saying "I won't date bisexuals". There's no distinguishing between a bi and cis person in most monogamous relationships.

That's dating though. Simple physical attraction is different. Again assuming the trans person is passing, there's nothing you can generalize to say that trans people aren't attractive to you. A trans person could look exactly like a non-trans person in terms of physical attraction. Same with a bi person.

Race, however is different in this regard. There are certainly physical differences that someone may or may not find attractive. And while there are certainly great variety in racial looks, it is certainly possible that some races are just not attractive to individuals for whatever reason.

[halfeye]

I've never heard (to my recollection), "I don't like redheads" or "I'd never date a redhead."

Ginger is red, right? a couple of years ago there was a spate of "ginger minger" abuse that went on around here.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/mi...guage-red-hair

It was very silly, and I don't understand why it started, I think it's faded back again, but it certainly existed for a while.

[Dr.Samurai]

If you make the statement, "I'm not attracted to black people," let's say, you have in your mind the 'idea' of what a black person looks like, and that idea is informed by culture and media as much (if not more so) as real experience. You don't like wide noses, maybe, or thick lips. You don't like kinky hair. You don't find those features attractive, you claim. Okay, that's fine... Except those features aren't uniform across all black people. They just aren't, and also, when people feel the need to blurt out their dating preferences, those are never the things they mention. It's simply the vague, nebulous "I'm not attracted to black people".

I have many questions. What idea is someone supposed to have of black people if it isn't one informed by culture, media, and experience? Do you need to know, factually, about all black people in order to make a general statement like "I'm not attracted to black people"? Is it useful to stop someone after that and say "are you including sub-saharans in that statement? what about aborigines?"? Is this a condemnation of generalizing in general, since this can be said about any groups of people? Do you think it's okay if someone is not attracted to wide noses, thick lips, and kinky hair? Is it wrong that culture informs our preferences?

If it's a question of wanting to date them... Alright. I can understand that dating is hard and it's important to find a compatible partner, but do you really think there aren't black people who meet your education level? Your socio-economic status? That you just could never meet a black person who shared your interests, or your political and religious views?

You can take the statement in more than one way. It could be a lazy way of saying they aren't attracted to the physical qualities that they believe most blacks have, but they are open to dating them if they meet someone that attracts them. People have "types", and can easily meet someone and fall for them and tell their story as "he is totally not my type but we hung out and after a few times I just kind of fell for him". My brother's wife tells this story. So does the statement "I'm not attracted to black people" mean that the person thinks they are beneath them and would never date them? No, I don't think it does. You're foisting quite a bit onto that comment.

Across all black people in the world, there is no physical commonality that one could point to, nor is there a single shared set of social experiences, so when people use racial shorthand to express their dating preferences, it isn't the 'people' aspect of 'black people' that's the issue; it's the blackness. The actual qualities, physical or otherwise, of any individual person aren't actually being spoken about. It's not the same as saying "I like beards" or "I like short women" or "I like muscular men"... Because whatever physical or social preferences you prefer, you could find people across all races that fit those preferences. The only defining feature of black people is their skin color (and honestly, not even that, since there's such a wide spectrum of ethnicities and color, too), and if you find the very feature of "dark skin" unattractive... 1) That's sort of racist, yeah and 2) Do you really think that just "happens" to be one's preference, completely divorced from centuries, if not millennia, of cultural conditioning?

"The actual qualities, physical or otherwise, ... aren't being spoken about." followed by "The only defining feature of black people is their skin color". Is it wrong to have a preference in skin color? If so, explain what makes it wrong. What is the actual difference between preferring a height, and preferring a skin tone? I mean, there's nothing I can do to change my height to be taller, and there is nothing I can do to make my skin tone lighter. Why can I hold women to task for being put off by my skin color, but I just have to eat the rejection if they prefer men taller than me? Please explain.

In regards to 1, it is not racist. Stop playing loose with words. In regards to 2, so what? Are we criticizing people for being brought up in a culture now? You haven't even demonstrated that it is wrong to prefer a skin tone, but here you are ready to condemn the fact that culture informs preferences. I think you need to slow down a little.

I grew up in a white town. So I don't identify too much with my hispanic culture. Should I change that? Should I recondition myself? How much of my attraction to white women was determined by my proximity to them? Should that be corrected? Why am I still attracted to hispanic women with darker skin and black hair? Can you really explain all of this away?

I know we all like to pretend we're rugged intellectual individuals, unmolested by society's influences, but isn't it kind of convenient how we just happen to live in a historical series of societies that more often than not were steeped in racism, sexism, classism and transphobia, and the "preferences" that people always want to bring up are at least adjacent to racism, sexism, classism, and transphobia?

Convenient? So to be clear, a preference for skin tone is racist (which you said already up above), and refusing to date a trans person is transphobic? What about religion? Am I some sort of bigot if I don't have a preference for fundamentalist women? What other categories can we pile on in here? Who determines what traits are allowed to be preferred and what ones aren't? You?

It's more acceptable to be transphobic than racist, so people don't need to hide behind the veil of vague words as much, but the same dynamic is at play here.

No one is hiding behind any veils. You are mangling words to apply labels improperly. Nothing more, nothing less.

The strawman that people have constructed is that some six foot six, hairy, bearded, roided-out man in a thrift-store dress and fishnets is going to walk around demanding people have sex with them and their penis, and if you're not down with that, you're a transphobe. I don't THINK that's how it works. Again, there is an idea in people's heads that they know what a trans person looks like, and they aren't attracted to that, but in reality, whether it's height, facial hair, specific facial features, body proportions, or even genitalia, there are trans people who would tick every box on your list. Critically, there are also cis people who WOULDN'T, who you would still be attracted to or romantically interested in despite "failing" to meet your standards.

It's not the physique of trans people that is being judged as unsuitable, nor is it the chromosomes, the fertility, or anything but their status as trans. Whereas it was impossible to categorize an ethnic group by a single feature, the argued unifying trait for trans people is their genitals not matching their identity, and that being used as disqualifying. Tabling the validity of a genital-based attraction argument for another day, it's also untrue to say that all transmen, or all transwomen have the same genitalia. It's just goalpost moving. "I like feminine-looking women" doesn't hold up to scrutiny when presented with passing transwomen, so it becomes "I only like vaginas," which fails to hold up when presented with post-op transwomen, so it becomes "I only like real vaginas." It's not a good-faith expression of personal preference; it's an after-the-fact justification and excuse for stereotypes and mild discrimination.

I think it's simply an inability to get over the fact that they used to be the same sex as you. That's all. I don't think it really goes beyond that. It's not a hatred or fear of anyone. It's simply "you used to be X, now you're Y, but you still used to be X and that turns me off to you". Some people can get over it, and some can't. Is this fair? I don't know. But I think that's what it is. To call that transphobic is a massive stretch though. People get rejected for less every day.

Eventually it even moves to the "children" argument, but even that is pretty flimsy. For people who want children, adopting is always a thing, and even people who only want biological children of their own (which is an entirely separate weird construction), there are options.

I love how you passively call people weird if they want to have their own biological children. Might as well. We're already calling the majority of people racists and transphobes so...

If your single point of opposition to trans people in your romantic circle is that your highest concern is having biological children that are also the biological children of your significant other, then I guess that's your let-off, but I also would hope that standard is being applied to cis-gender people with fertility issues as well, but knowing how these discussions go, it usually isn't. Things that are "deal-breakers" when applied to members of minority groups are often negotiable when applies to members of majority groups.

Here's an idea... don't worry about it. Don't worry if people are getting off the hook or applying their standards across the board. It's none of your business. If you get rejected, you get rejected.

Ultimately, you can't usually logic someone into sleeping with you. If someone rejects you, you don't get to argue with them that they shouldn't have, and you're not going to change their minds just by pointing out that their closely-held "personal preferences" are actually the logical result of centuries of social conditioning.

Bingo. Especially when the statement "their closely-held personal preferences are actually the logical result of centuries of social conditioning" isn't nearly as much of a "gotcha" statement as you think it is. It's like... thanks for that factoid. Anyways, I'm going back to preferring the things I like.

On the other hand, if you are the kind of person who will comfortably make a blanket statement of "I'm not attracted to black people" or "I wouldn't date a trans person", then you honestly aren't a good partner for those people ANYWAY. It's not so much that you should have to deal with them, as they really shouldn't have to deal with you. No one deserves a partner who is going to treat them poorly, or make judgments about them based on their race, gender identity, or any other intrinsic facet of who they are.

So "I'm not attracted to black people" means "I will treat black people poorly". And here you are worrying about people judging other people. I can't roll my eyes any harder.

[ArgentiAertheri]

I have a question:

Im a non binary person who lives in a language that has literally no gender neutrality. what should i do to still somehow de-genderify myself in that framework?

Does Hebrew have gender neutral nouns? Like, hmm, English doesn't, and my Latin has apparently evaporated, but Latin nouns have three gender options -- masculine, feminine, and neuter/neutral. If Hebrew works like that could you use whatever pronouns refer to neutral nouns? Or would that be like calling someone "it" (when that isn't their preference)?

[The Extinguisher]

"The actual qualities, physical or otherwise, ... aren't being spoken about." followed by "The only defining feature of black people is their skin color". Is it wrong to have a preference in skin color? If so, explain what makes it wrong. What is the actual difference between preferring a height, and preferring a skin tone? I mean, there's nothing I can do to change my height to be taller, and there is nothing I can do to make my skin tone lighter. Why can I hold women to task for being put off by my skin color, but I just have to eat the rejection if they prefer men taller than me? Please explain.

Centuries of structural power imbalance, oppression, and literal enslavement and murder

[Razade]

Centuries of structural power imbalance, oppression, and literal enslavement and murder

Which every nation on earth has done and some continue to do. Just because the one I live in has done it/does it does not somehow mean my dating pool has to suddenly explode open to include people I'm not physically attracted to. The buck has to stop somewhere, I literally just read an article that said eating healthy was racist. When everything is racist, nothing is.

[lio45]

Centuries of structural power imbalance, oppression, and literal enslavement and murder

What does that have to do with the case of, say, a black guy who happens to like the big asses and big boobs that are relatively common in black women, while being honestly and sincerely not physically attracted to "uncurvy" types? (typical East Asian women for example)

If anyone out there happens to prefer curvy women, it's only due to "centuries of structural power imbalance"? That's laughable.

[The Extinguisher]

Which every nation on earth has done and some continue to do. Just because the one I live in has done it/does it does not somehow mean my dating pool has to suddenly explode open to include people I'm not physically attracted to. The buck has to stop somewhere, I literally just read an article that said eating healthy was racist. When everything is racist, nothing is.

Again im not saying you have to do anything. Im just saying its a good idea to recognize why you arent attracted to a group of people based on a singular trait that is used as an axis of oppression from which you benefit.

What does that have to do with the case of, say, a black guy who happens to like the big asses and big boobs that are relatively common in black women, while being honestly and sincerely not physically attracted to "uncurvy" types? (typical East Asian women for example)

If anyone out there happens to prefer curvy women, it's only due to "centuries of structural power imbalance"? That's laughable.

This is, quite literally, the exact opposite of what i said. So congrats for that i guess.

[lio45]

Oh yay its my favourite topic again :/

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding in these discussions, deliberate or not. No one is trying to force anyone to date, have sex with, whatever, anyone. But when we say that not wanting to date "trans people" (as opposed to "a trans person") transphobic, its an attempt to get you to examine why you think like that and understand what is the underlying base.

I'm as gay-friendly as you can find, yet I'm not physically attracted to other men, which using your definition makes me homophobic (I'm blanket-declaring I won't date other men, no matter how great they are as individuals).

Which is a safe sign there's a problem with your definition.

[Razade]

Again im not saying you have to do anything. Im just saying its a good idea to recognize why you arent attracted to a group of people based on a singular trait that is used as an axis of oppression from which you benefit.

I certainly would recognize it if it weren't for a few things.

1. A person's skin tone isn't the sole criteria on which I base attraction.

2. I agreed with your premise.

3. You actually gave evidence to your claim. Not evidence that humans have been awful to other humans. Evidence enough of that just on the daily. But that somehow because the country I lived in put a bunch of Asian people in camps or segregated their communities or owned slaves, that makes it racist of me to not be attracted to various skin tones. The two don't add up.

[Comrade]

Again im not saying you have to do anything. Im just saying its a good idea to recognize why you arent attracted to a group of people based on a singular trait that is used as an axis of oppression from which you benefit.

So... does this apply uniquely to white people in Western countries, whereas people of colour in those countries are at liberty to prefer not dating white people (or people of other ethnic backgrounds)? That seems to be what you're getting at.

[The Extinguisher]

I'm as gay-friendly as you can find, yet I'm not physically attracted to other men, which using your definition makes me homophobic (I'm blanket-declaring I won't date other men, no matter how great they are as individuals).

Which is a safe sign there's a problem with your definition.

Orientation is a whole lot different than preference and thats all ill say on that matter because i dont want to derail this conversation cause my thoughts on it isnt 101 stuff

Long story short, its not the same, but maybe still worth examining anyway?

I certainly would recognize it if it weren't for a few things.

1. A person's skin tone isn't the sole criteria on which I base attraction.

2. I agreed with your premise.

3. You actually gave evidence to your claim. Not evidence that humans have been awful to other humans. Evidence enough of that just on the daily. But that somehow because the country I lived in put a bunch of Asian people in camps or segregated their communities or owned slaves, that makes it racist of me to not be attracted to various skin tones. The two don't add up.

Sure, but a persons skin tone is the sole determinant when youre talking about not dating people because of their skin tone which is what we are doing.

Looks its not my place to explain systemic racism to you and i dont want to explain systemic homophobia and transphobia to you. Google is free.

So... does this apply uniquely to white people in Western countries, whereas people of colour in those countries are at liberty to prefer not dating white people (or people of other ethnic backgrounds)? That seems to be what you're getting at.

Yes. Because, shocking i know, white western culture is built around white supremacy.

[Liquor Box]

@Liquor Box

No, I wasn't saying attraction was a decision, I was saying the opposite, that it isn't, but one's action in response to attraction is. If you change your action when your attraction hasn't changed, then there must be a reason for it, and something like "they're trans" doesn't adequately explain the reason for that change (in my opinion)... unless it's paired with transphobic viewpoints, like seeing trans people as their assigned-at-birth gender, or fearing being gay or something.

I think you missunderstand me here.

I am not talking about situations when a person is attracted to a person, finds out they are trans, remains attracted to them, but makes a conscious decision not to have sex with them because they are trans. A conscious and deliberate decision like that is one that you may be able to question from the perspective of logic. Instead I am talking about circumstances where the attraction is no longer there after finding that the person is trans.

Spoiler: Raistlin discussing how a discriminaotry dociety effects our outlook

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My core argument, in as clear a way as I can make it (and also in a way that's gonna get me flamed by someone or other, I'm sure) is that broader society is discriminatory against people who do not fall in line with the norm, and that societal thought gets distilled down into individual people by way of participating in society. Not every straight person is homophobic, but every straight person exists in a society that contains homophobic elements, and subconsciously picks up on those elements, and has to learn to unlearn them. Homophobic, transphobic, sexist, racist, ableist, classist thought permeates through society, and if it doesn't directly affect you, you might not immediately think to go against it.

This is not a condemnation of straight people, or white people, or men, or whoever. It's not saying they're bad people, or do bad things. It's just pointing out that homophobia, for example, is harder to see when you're straight. Many a well-meaning straight person has expressed a viewpoint like "I am fine with gay people, I just don't want to see two men kiss," or something like that. That doesn't mean they're necessarily homophobic, but that they experience a society where two men kissing is not normalized. It's othered. It's aberrant. It's even dangerous. And those are homophobic things that society as a whole has perpetuated, and an individual straight person may experience discomfort due to. If they think about it, however, they might realize that it's not strange or gross or weird, and that their discomfort was unwarranted.

Obviously, there are fashion trends and trendsetters trying to make money off of specific looks, which can include things like hair or eye color, but those things are fleeting. You may be influenced by a societal preference for a certain standard of beauty like blonde hair, but the pendulum is just as likely to swing back the other way, and the people who try to push those agendas are all in competition and trying to set the trends themselves anyway. Even if there is some current "dominant" model for hair and eye color, there are so many visible attractive people that the pressure is well-distributed. If you have a personal preference for green eyes, I'm not going to argue with you. It's a quirk of yours. You think they look nice. Whatever the reason, you like green eyes, but that is your preference. It hasn't really been forced upon you by society (or at least, not necessarily any stronger than any other preference).

I think at a general level I agree with most of that. I wont point out the areas on the margins where I disagree to avoid sidetracking.

When it comes to marginalized groups, my core point is that the things a person might claim as their personal preference, as it relates to race and gender, very often line up with the negative social understandings of those things. If you claim to not be interested in black people, is it because you aren't aesthetically attracted to an individual black person, or is it because you've unconsciously absorbed certain negative cultural beliefs and opinions about blackness, that black people are uneducated, that black people are poor, that black people are bad partners, that they're criminals, that they're lazy, that they're dangerous? If you wouldn't date a trans person, is it because you don't find an individual trans person attractive, or is it because you've been influenced by decades of media showing trans women as men in dresses, as punchlines, as devious rapists out to "trick" men, as the villain in Silence of the Lambs, as campy villains in all sorts of films, as mentally ill, etc. while not showing trans men at all (to the point that many people seem to forget they exist)? Even if you don't hold those strong, prejudiced beliefs, you're influenced by having grown up and lived around them, and that might be affecting your "preference" without you realizing.

I agree with this. Both are possible. It is possible a person may not be attracted to black people (individually or generally) because they are not aesthetically attracted to them. It is also possible a person may not be attracted to black people (individually or generally) because they are subconsciously (or consciously) subscribing to negative stereotypes often applied to black people.

But I don't think you or anyone else should feel entitled to draw a conclusion as to which of these two possibilities is a reality for a particular person, or to condemn that person for their choice.

Of course, no one can say that for sure on your behalf. I can't say "you're racist for not dating black people," because I can't know something like that. However, my belief is that the visceral repulsion that some people experience when the idea is floated of romance or intimacy with a member of a marginalized group, and the fact that those same marginalized groups that are the ones that are consistently historically discriminated against, are not coincidental. This unconscious biases are countered by introspection, and by trying to understand other viewpoints, and also simply experiencing more of the world, and meeting different kinds of people. 100 years ago, the amount of white people who would claim to find black people attractive was almost assuredly far less, as a proportion. I don't think there has been some evolutionary shift in that century, where now somehow non-black people are suddenly way more attracted to black people. Rather, I think some (though certainly not all) of the social attitudes and conditioning (in white society) that made black people seem unattractive to white people, has begun to erode. Black people didn't change, and white attraction didn't change (as history will tell us, white people often found black people very attractive, while at the same time abusing them and denying them rights). Instead, as racist thought and ideology became somewhat less pervasive, fewer people were influenced by it.

Again, I agree with much of this. In particular I agree with your first couple of sentences that you cannot say a person is racist for not dating black people.

I also agree that unconscious biases are best countered with introspection, and that it is important to try and understand the perspective of others. I do get the sense that you are pointing the finger here in a particular direction (toward those whose attitudes to these issues you disagree with), where I think that introspection and a commitment to understanding others' perspectives is a character building for us all.

Where I don't agree is your belief that any preference not to have sex with a member of a marginalised group is not a coincidence (and by implication, is caused by subconscious xyzism). As noted above, I think you are sometimes right here, societal and cultural factors are certainly an influence and sometimes it may be a subconscious buy in to stereotypes that causes a person to not be attracted to a member of a marginalised group.
But again, that is not always the case. On other occasions people may simply be less attracted to members of certain groups (whether it be ethnic groups, trans people, people of certain age, people of a certain religion, or anything else whether marginalised or not) for reasons unrelated to stereotypes. In the same way that people are more attracted to people of one hair colour or eye colour or taller people or whatever. One thing that demonstrates that ethnic preference in sexual partners is not necessarily caused by buying into negative stereotypes against a marginalised group is that sometimes people prefer the marginalised group over the majority group. Some black people prefer to have sex with black people, and this is not due to negative stereotypes about whites. Indeed, some white people prefer to have sex with black people.

What i think that you are not entitled to do is to assume that a preference for one ethnicity over another (for example, being more attracted to blacks than whites) is because of racism (even subconscious subscription to race based stereotypes), because although it may sometimes be, it is not always the case. A person should not be condemned because of their preference is sexual partners.

If I have a thesis statement, this is basically it. Social norms and conventions promoting the aesthetic value of things like hair color, eye color, hair style, clothing style, etc. are usually weak enough and often cyclical enough that a person's individual preference regarding these attributes can be almost wholly attributed to their personal tastes. Social pressure regarding the value (aesthetic or otherwise) of marginalized people is much stronger, so much so that its influence over people's tastes and preferences can't be ignored. For this reason, one should question one's individual preferences when they conform to society's historical hierarchies, as the preferences may be at least partially the result of those hierarchies, rather than a truly random individual variance in taste.

I think you are again making the mistake of attributing all attraction to social norms. Attraction goes beyond social norms. I have never heard particular eye colours becoming fashionable, and then becoming less fashionable. I don't think that a person's attraction to a particular hair colour necessarily change change cyclically with fashion trends (they may sometimes, but not always). Being tall may become more or less fashionable over time (I don't know, I don;t follow fashion trends that closely), but people's attraction to one or the other will often endure beyond what is fashionable.

I have no objection to your suggestion that each of us should sometimes stop and check our own biases. That is good advice for every person and goes well beyond sexual preferences. But, again, people are still absolutely entitled to choose not to have sex with whoever they want (whether that be an individual, trans people, and ethnic group, people who are short or anything else the like). I think it is you who is in the wrong if you condemn people who choose not to have sex with any of those groups.

[Razade]

Sure, but a persons skin tone is the sole determinant when youre talking about not dating people because of their skin tone which is what we are doing.

Since no one is saying that and you are just making this hypothetical person, it's a strawman. No one is saying they have a sole criteria, full stop. Skin color, hair color, etc etc etc. You're saying we're saying that and we're not.

Looks its not my place to explain systemic racism to you and i dont want to explain systemic homophobia and transphobia to you. Google is free.

I don't want you to either, because you're an insanely biased source and believe it or not, I know fairly well the areas we're discussing. The problem here, at least for you, is I don't agree with your conclusion. Shock of shocks.

People who are racist won't date people for their race. People who are homophobic...aren't going to date people of their own sex (though there's quite the correlation between homophobia and being gay so..maybe they will eventually), etc etc etc. That does not mean someone who prefers a skin tone or a hair color (preference, not sole criteria) is racist. Preferences aren't biases. Well. Not in the way you're wanting them to be.

As others have pointed out, it's the same as not wanting to date someone short or tall or fat or anything else. I'm 5'3''. That's a whooping 160cm, and I'm male. Think my dating pool's been especially vibrant? I didn't internalize all the rejection I got from men or women because of my height as some sort of anti-short bias. I understood they had a preference and while I wish they hadn't....they had and I had to get over it. I'm not entitled to date everyone I want to date and I'm certainly not entitled to have sex with everyone I want to have sex with.

Yes. Because, shocking i know, white western culture is built around white supremacy.

But no other culture is built around supremacy. So you best get your flogs out and beat yourself for the sin of being born.

[lio45]

As others have pointed out, it's the same as not wanting to date someone short or tall or fat or anything else. I'm 5'3''. That's a whooping 160cm, and I'm male. Think my dating pool's been especially vibrant? I didn't internalize all the rejection I got from men or women because of my height as some sort of anti-short bias. I understood they had a preference and while I wish they hadn't....they had and I had to get over it. I'm not entitled to date everyone I want to date and I'm certainly not entitled to have sex with everyone I want to have sex with.

I'm sorry you had to be exposed to so many shortophobic people. Shame on them! Disgusting bigots.

[Razade]

I'm sorry you had to be exposed to so many shortophobic people. Shame on them! Disgusting bigots.

It was a hard life. Everyone pointed and laughed when I had to drag around a peach crate to reach the high shelves at market. They shouted things like "shortie" or "munchkin" or "shrimp" while throwing high top sneakers at me. Everyone looking down their noses...because they had to...just to sneer at me. Shopping in the kids department for shoes at the age of 30. People blasting Short People by Randy Newman. CURSE YOU, NEWMAN!

No one had a problem with me being gay though. Weirdest thing.

[Liquor Box]

"The only defining feature of black people is their skin color". Is it wrong to have a preference in skin color? If so, explain what makes it wrong. What is the actual difference between preferring a height, and preferring a skin tone?

Contrary to some of the discussion in reply to your question, height discrimination is a thing just like racial discrimination (although perhaps not to the same degree).
- "Research indicates that the human brain uses height as a measurement to determine social status and fitness. The brain automatically associates physical size with leadership potential, power, strength and intelligence, an effect which has been discovered in infants as young as 10 months old" (from wikipedia, linked below)
- The wiki article also states that short men have a significantly higher suicide rate than tall men, which is said to be due to the stigma of shortness.
- In my own home country the income gap between tall men and short men is greater than the income gap between men and women.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_discrimination

It seems to me that height preference is completely analogous to skin tone preference in this context. Just as skin tone preference may (or may not) be caused by subconscious subscriptions to stereotypes, so to height preference may (or may not) be caused by subconscious belief that short people have less "leadership potential, power, strength and intelligence".

I still think you cannot condemn women who are only attracted to tall men.

[lio45]

Contrary to some of the discussion in reply to your question, height discrimination is a thing just like racial discrimination (although perhaps not to the same degree).
- "Research indicates that the human brain uses height as a measurement to determine social status and fitness. The brain automatically associates physical size with leadership potential, power, strength and intelligence, an effect which has been discovered in infants as young as 10 months old" (from wikipedia, linked below)
- The wiki article also states that short men have a significantly higher suicide rate than tall men, which is said to be due to the stigma of shortness.
- In my own home country the income gap between tall men and short men is greater than the income gap between men and women.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_discrimination

It seems to me that height preference is completely analogous to skin tone preference in this context. Just as skin tone preference may (or may not) be caused by subconscious subscriptions to stereotypes, so to height preference may (or may not) be caused by subconscious belief that short people have less "leadership potential, power, strength and intelligence".

I still think you cannot condemn women who are only attracted to tall men.

Well, it's crystal clear women tend to be attracted to the men who look like they'll be the best providers and protectors for them and their future family: tall, muscular, healthy, strong, smart, rich, as devoid of genetic flaws as possible, etc.

That basic instinct is present in all female mammals. You try to get the best possible mate you can get.

[The Extinguisher]

Just once it would be nice to say something on this forum and not be grossly and deliberately misinterpreted.

But sure, keep on keeping on not examining your inherent prejudices. Its a *great* look when someone tells you that your actions might represent a systemic oppression to just close your eyes and say nuh-uh

[Liquor Box]

(though there's quite the correlation between homophobia and being gay so..maybe they will eventually),

Are you saying that homosexuality is more prevalent among people who are homophobic than among the general population?

It has nothing to do with the present discussion, but I'm interested as it is a little counter-intuitive.