Having a fetish for feet or whatever is fine. Having a fetish for race is not. And to be honest, a lot of people say they have a race preference when in reality it's fetishization anyway.
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I'm trying to understanding whether my dating preference has been/is a fetish - and why
- Thread starter JonCha
- Start date
See, this is kinda weird to me (unless this is a bit I'm wooshing)
I'm poking fun at some of the shit I hear. Perhaps I should of clarified on it.
I am happily married with a kid on the way though with my queen.
You like what you like, what's there to analyze. You shouldn't have to explain yourself for being...you. Go with what makes you happy- clearly, having romantic feelings and pursuing relationships with black women in particular, is that thing. Nobody's getting hurt here
Why not? As long as they get along just fine and not in the abusive relationship who cares of the reasons they are attracted to each other? People are attracted to various traits - not to generic faceless humans - so if they find attraction in other races, why it's a problem?
It is like having attractions to hair color - as long as you are not the demon barber or something - it is fine.
Because 99% of the time it's do with some other factor that is based in racist stereotypes.
That's a really strong assumption there. I think we're misusing the term "fetish" somewhat in this context. It just means a person is sexually attracted to aspects of another person that are not inherently sexual by itself. It's not really this umbrella for objectification and dehumanization.
Ehh, it can be though, once you apply it to very specific physical traits of your partner as opposed to lets say a leather fetish, etc where the physical attribute of your partner doesnt make a difference.
And I can understand the argument that simple
preference can just be that ("I want a tall dark man"). Problem is that we don't live in a society where these things randomly grow out of a vacuum and it's
not hard to find stereotypes when you scratch the surface.
Do you actively seek black women to date, or is it coincidental everyone you have found attractive to come into your path has been a black woman? The latter isn't an issue, the former is where you should be self reflecting.
The origin of how a person develops a fetish for dark skinned people can have roots in racist stereotypes that are ingrained in society yes, but what I mean is that this doesn't necessarily leads to racist behaviour or treatment in a personal level if that makes sense. You could make a similar argument about the root of how people develop other fetishes like Dom/Sub, degradation, etc, and how they may reflect on the way someone will actually treat their partners. Something like correlation is not causation? Idk if I'm being clear.
You like who you like. Just keep having that dialogue with yourself.
Also, as long as you are not one of those people going around saying how anyone who doesn't meet your preference is unattractive or whatever.
Those people are the worst.
Also, as long as you are not one of those people going around saying how anyone who doesn't meet your preference is unattractive or whatever.
Those people are the worst.
This definition?
I don't see how there's room to interpret this as saying that people with a fetish can only be aroused by it. It says people with a fetish CAN experience dysfunction, why would you interpret that as a black and white statement?
Also, how do you know that this is why Kernel wrote the post I quoted?
Oh, I agree. You could be a person who finds darker skin attractive based off broad aesthetic purposes, same way some people date based off other characteristics (height, body shape, etc). I can't say that all things considered preferring lets say a darker skin color is objectively worse than someone wanting someone who's tall, nor is it automatically something more nefarious.
But more often then not in our reality
1)Can we say its purely aesthetic or without causation. It's hard considering how much our socialization impacts our dating choices…descriptors in dating sites can be extremely racist for instance ("No asian men, just a preference!") while insisting they aren't bigoted.
2)Even if its pure aesthetic doesn't mean it can't be creepy. Women/men with certain desirable niche body types (big breasted women, unusually tall men, etc) can tell you stories of comments they've gotten or people they've dated that made them feel uncomfortable.
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Because it's reducing people of a specific race into harmful and demeaning stereotypes.
What is racist behavior in your own words? Because a person doesn't have to be negative or hateful towards someone of another race to exhibit racist behavior. For example, people with a fetish for Asian women that believe they're inherently submissive. They may not "hate" Asian women but damn is that still racist as hell.
Growing up as mixed person in America who identifies as black I don't think it is at all. I think what your describing is inherently impossible. Most people who claim to be sexually attracted to one race over another has had that opinion shaped by society or things they have experienced in life even if they realize it or not. I am not saying it's good or bad
There absolutely can be a problem if you fetishize someone's race. I've talked to guys who did this and it's a major turn off. Like one who seemed attracted to me and I liked that, except when we got to talking more and he went on and on about my ethnicity, how he likes people of my ethnicity, and mentioning "oh and black people too". It became really clear he wasn't talking to me as a person, he was talking to his favorite ethnicity and just saw past everything else. I don't think he even realized what he was doing. He clearly didn't even think there was anything wrong, but it was a major red flag. But when you're on the receiving end of it the difference in interactions between sometime like this and someone who genuinely likes you as a person is very different.
This is exactly it. It's really upsetting how many people don't realize it's a problem or don't think it should be. Some people even think it's a compliment you should be grateful for. It doesn't matter if they're nice to you or they like you, it still is demeaning and uncomfortable for the exact reasons you stated.
OP I am not the most eloquent person to get my thoughts out and present them well. I don't think your doing anything wrong. I think you should look at your post in this thread. Basically it sounds like what your saying in a nutshell is you get along with black people and you feel a level of comfort around them more then you do with white people. This leads to you predominantly dating black women. I think you should talk to your girlfriend and focus on that. It sounds like your life experience has made you feel that way and that's why you date the way you do. She wants to understand why that is and she wants to make sure there isn't some underlining fetish or racial stereotyping you're doing towards black people whether you realize it or not.
Just remember it can comes across odd and suspect when you're presenting the fact that you think you get along with one race of people over another because black people aren't a monolith we don't all think or act the same. Nothing will get you the side eye faster then saying shit like that.
Just remember it can comes across odd and suspect when you're presenting the fact that you think you get along with one race of people over another because black people aren't a monolith we don't all think or act the same. Nothing will get you the side eye faster then saying shit like that.
I don't think there's a right or wrong in this situation. You exploring this further and being introspective is a mature way of going about it. If you were to put certain physical features of black women on a pedestal I'd say that would be problematic. But none of your comments make it seem that way. You seem to get along better with people of color evidenced by you having mostly PoC friends. And that's ok. If your experiences with PoC led you to identify more with black women then it's natural to want what makes you emotionally fulfilled.
I think it's worth exploring more and continuing to work on your relationships. But I don't think what you are doing is wrong at all.
I think it's worth exploring more and continuing to work on your relationships. But I don't think what you are doing is wrong at all.
That does happen, but I'm not sure we can always trace a straight line between a person developing a racial/skin tone fetish due to societal aspects that are problematic and that fetish leading them to dehumanize their partners. I think the focus should be less on "having this fetish is bad" and more on people not reducing others by these aspects they're sexually attracted to? IMO despite the similar words, fetishization and having a fetish are totally different things, so maybe that's something we can agree on.
I understand that, and I don't think I've implied it was limited to obvious hateful behaviour. Negative in the context of my post was any way a partner is treated that they would consider unacceptable.
I've recognized that in another post, I think what I really meant to say is that the roots of a fetish being problematic don't necessarily result in the person who has that sort of fetish mistreatingt their partners because of that fetish. Like, maybe a white man has a specific fetish for black women because of societal stereotypes he absorbed (maybe even unconsciously) growing up, however if he consciously makes the effort of not reducing the person he's in a relationship with to those aspects, then it can still be a healthy and respectful relationship right? Maybe there can be some difficulties and it's not a perfectly smooth relationship, but that's part of kind of interpersonal and sexual interaction, everyone is subject to their biases and pre-conceptions, idk.
I should've said it's based on an outdated version of the DSM. They've changed the definition repeatedly over the years after people lobbied for it to be changed; i can't look it up right now, but I believe the "you need the kink in order to be aroused" definition was from the original version of the DSM-III from 1980 and that's the one that stuck in the public consciousness.
Tell me if I'm wrong but you seemed to have been saying that if a person has a fetish for a certain race based on negative stereotypes but does not treat their partners of that race in an bad way then it's ok.
If so, I really can't agree with that.
You need two to tango because it sounds like if person prefers people from other race, for some reason the other side is forced into relationship with him. Pretty much obvious that if person dates somebody for whatever reason, the other side likes his company too.
In what way? For whatever reason one person prefers another one, you need two people attracted to each other to have a relationship.
But that's the thing - you need to people attracted to each other to have the relationship. You already said you found such behavior off putting thus you don't need to continue the relationship.
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I looked up the DSM-III definition and it still uses words like 'can' and 'may.' If there is an edition of the DSM that has claims someone with a fetish literally needs it to be aroused, I'm still confused as to why you assume that other poster is referring to it. I've never even heard of this idea, and I think you'd agree that when most people say things like "I have a foot fetish" they don't mean "Feet are the only thing that sexually excite me."
Strange!
At the end of the day, if you see and treat the people as humans and not just colors, I see no reason to feel conflicted. If your intentions are pure and there is no malice or ulterior motive in seeking our presence, stop feeling uncomfortable about it.
My best friend, who I met in culinary school, was a white kid who came from a town with literally one black family. It just turned out that he liked everything I did, we held the same values, had similar issues with our parental upbringing, and the way he talked about spacing out and creating on the guitar was exactly how I entered the zone when I rapped. He was also one to judge a person simply on who they are, he just never looked at me as black first. He ended up gravitating toward me and then by default just hung around myself and the black guys in the dorms. We honestly never thought anything of it, and he felt comfortable because he was genuinely my friend.
As far as dating, he was really attracted to black women but was afraid to approach them lol. Couldn't blame the kid.
So JonCha I get why you are questioning things, but I feel like you have a lot in common with my old friend. You just shouldn't sweat your wavelength aligning with black people, if your heart is pure just see it as incidental to your life's path. Ignore all external factors and check your heart though. If you're good there then fuck everything and everyone who has something to say.
My best friend, who I met in culinary school, was a white kid who came from a town with literally one black family. It just turned out that he liked everything I did, we held the same values, had similar issues with our parental upbringing, and the way he talked about spacing out and creating on the guitar was exactly how I entered the zone when I rapped. He was also one to judge a person simply on who they are, he just never looked at me as black first. He ended up gravitating toward me and then by default just hung around myself and the black guys in the dorms. We honestly never thought anything of it, and he felt comfortable because he was genuinely my friend.
As far as dating, he was really attracted to black women but was afraid to approach them lol. Couldn't blame the kid.
So JonCha I get why you are questioning things, but I feel like you have a lot in common with my old friend. You just shouldn't sweat your wavelength aligning with black people, if your heart is pure just see it as incidental to your life's path. Ignore all external factors and check your heart though. If you're good there then fuck everything and everyone who has something to say.
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What are you trying to say? That it's somehow someone's own fault if someone they date fetishizes them? You do realize that people can't always tell immediately that someone is fetishizing them, right?
I'll give you an example. I dated a girl some years ago - we had good chemistry, there weren't any red flags, we both were attracted to each other, etc. However, as we got more comfortable with each other she started to let things slip out that made me uncomfortable. At one point, she told me how she liked black men's dicks because they were bigger. She meant it as a compliment to me but it wasn't really - she wasn't attracted to me at all - she just wanted the stereotype and racist fantasy of a sexually dominant black man.
You seem to think that being attracted to someone who happens to be of another race and fetishizing an entire other race are the same thing - that if two people are in an interracial relationship that they fetishize each other equally because they both are attracted to each other's traits. But there is a clear difference between being attracted to an individual and being attracted to a race because of stereotypes that are based in racism.
My opinion is that there is nothing wrong to be attracted to one race or specific trait, but being a creep is a different matter altogether and never good anyway.
I mean, yeah kinda. You can't really do anything about how your environment shapes your sexual preferences or fetishes, same as how you can't change your privileges and how they color your biases. What matters to me is how you actually act in practice and your attitudes and the outcomes they bring to your relationships.
Nobody should have to stop having a fetish.
This is a good post. As a transwoman, I also have to be on alert (so to speak) because I might think me and someone else are hitting it off because we have good chemistry, but then later find out it's because their fetish is people like me.
Just wanted to say your post speaks volumes, on so many things in so many ways. Beyond this specific discussion. Much love and gratitude.
What is "being a creep" mean? You don't need to be a creep to demean someone and break them down to base stereotypes associated with their race. Hell; you can even be nice and loving to them and still do that. I guess this is truly one of those things you can't understand unless you've had it happen to you.
Yes… yes you can. What? If you fetishize a race and decide to just keep exclusively dating them, that tells me you don't care to challenge your own bias and faults. Like I said, you can treat a person well and lovingly in a relationship but if the core reason you're with them is still that you have a fetish for their race then that's still wrong as hell.
If you have a racial fetish you absolutely should stop having it. The fuck?
Based off 'stereotypes' though? It's doomed to fail. There really isn't a point where if your fetish is due to stereotypes, you suddenly see them as a whole person because of 'love'.
Like for a random news story; you've got a woman here that apparently exclusively dates black men, has biracial children because of that fact, yet still went full racist...in NYC.
Manhattan woman defends use of racial slur in now-viral bakery rant
LOWER EAST SIDE, Manhattan — A maskless woman caught on video calling a Black Manhattan bakery employee a racial slur for refusing her service over the store’s mask policy defended her action…
pix11.com
Those stereotypes don't go away.
Like for a random news story; you've got a woman here that apparently exclusively dates black men, has biracial children because of that fact, yet still went full racist...in NYC.
Those stereotypes don't go away.Manhattan woman defends use of racial slur in now-viral bakery rant
LOWER EAST SIDE, Manhattan — A maskless woman caught on video calling a Black Manhattan bakery employee a racial slur for refusing her service over the store’s mask policy defended her action…
There were a few stories like this in the last few years.
I think another thing worth pointing out, is that oftentimes, fetishization presents as stereotypes that are on surface reads considered positive but are actually harmful when given more than a cursory introspection.
See: I like dating Black women because they're strong, independent and don't take no shit.
See also: I like dating Black men because they're aggressive stallions in bed.
These are both stereotypes that seem positive, because they can be directly linked back to the acceptance of harmful treatment when it comes to Black people as a whole.
So yeah, while I don't think it's wrong to experience attraction to other racial groups, if it comes to a point that you're expressing it as a "preference", you owe it to yourself if nobody else to explore why that is. Where does this preference come from? Not to imply that it's always from a harmful place, but this shouldn't be an intimidating thing to question.
I'm not sure I follow. I obviously started talking to them because I found them attractive, and was initially pleased to know they found me attractive. Hey there's something here, let's explore it. But the more the talking continued the more it became clear it wasn't an attraction, it was a fetish, and I wasn't being courted, i was being objectified. Mind you he wasn't being creepy about it, that's a very different behavior than fetishizing someone's race. Sometimes there's overlap but often times there isn't.
You asked "what's wrong with having a fetish for someone's race", and I told you why. I'm not sure "idk just stop talking to them then" is a viable rebuttal to what I said.
Physical preference is not a fetish.
If you expand this preference to include other non-physical attributes that's stereotyping (i.e. associating behaviors, temperments, etc to physical traits). If you put up purity test barriers around the physical attributes (i.e. believing an Asian woman cannot have dark pigmented skin or a broad enough nose (a stretch but I'm just trying to make a point)) that's fetishization.
If you expand this preference to include other non-physical attributes that's stereotyping (i.e. associating behaviors, temperments, etc to physical traits). If you put up purity test barriers around the physical attributes (i.e. believing an Asian woman cannot have dark pigmented skin or a broad enough nose (a stretch but I'm just trying to make a point)) that's fetishization.
I don't think you fetishise black women. You've explained your attraction quite fairly that you grew up in a diverse community, so it's a ton of sense.
What would be fetishising is if you are attracted to the stereotypical assumptions of a population, actively seeking them out and expected those "exotic" desires to be fufilled.
What would be fetishising is if you are attracted to the stereotypical assumptions of a population, actively seeking them out and expected those "exotic" desires to be fufilled.
Society places guilt on people who date outside their race whether directly or indirectly. It's this weird tribal thing we are innately possessed by. That's where the whole notion of fetishizing/kink comes from imo. If you find certain women/men attractive who share little in common physically, it must be an oddity. It's complete b.s. imo.
Here is the thing you're not understanding. Many of the reasons someone may prefer one race over the other are reasons that are for lack of better terms...not true. They are stereotypes that don't apply to everyone of that race.
For example if I said: "I love Asian girls because they're all short!" that would be a stereotype because not every Asian girl is short. I have attributed a physical or personal characteristic to an entire race of people. That is the very definition of racist behavior. I'm sure you can understand what the issue with this is.
Even something seemingly benign like "I like black dudes because their skin is dark!" isn't an entirely pleasant thing to say because we all have different skin tones.
Having some sort of physical or personality preference is fine enough. But when you start associating those qualities with an entire ethnicity, you start to delve into stereotyping.
This is very valid if we are just discussing personal characteristics or singular personality traits. It sounds like OP relates more to the lived experience overall of PoC, and in that case I don't think it's racist to relate to a more holistic view of someone's life as opposed to 1-2 traits. I think that's what OP should really explore.
I don't think so, I think I'm great.
Anyways I think it is more complicated than that.
Yes because "I would never date a person of my race" comes from a place of logic and wholesome intentions.
Literally excluding an entire race up front is bad. Your own race is severely fucked up.
Of course it's "complicated" and I am not the professional who can sort that out for you, so I won't try.
No, quite the opposite, I noted it would be subconscious and precisely without logic or consideration.I was simply stating that I don't hate myself, like at all, if anything I have too much self esteem.
You cannot say stuff like this but co-sign people who "Only" date 1 race because that is odd, especially When there are so many other races who are not even considered dating options. It's always dating white men if you are a minority woman or dating a white women if you are a minority male, even in diverse areas.
FYI when people say self hate in reference to race, they aren't actually talking about you hating yourself as a person. It's about internalized racism which, yes, can be subconscious. Unfortunately stereotypes and racism ingrained in cultures can enter the minds of people of the very race targeted by that racism. Unfortunately if you would not date someone of your own race there is a problem of internalized racism there. Thinking highly of yourself would have nothing to do with self hate in this context - both could coexist and in fact feed each other.
Sorry, I was on the road and not able to give a more detailed post earlier. I wasn't suggesting that the other poster was referencing the DSM on purpose, but rather trying to explain where that definition came from since I heard the same thing several times before getting more educated on the history of the term. Turns out it was in the DSM-III like I thought, but it's not really easy to find the full text of 40 year old psychology manuals.
Sexual Sunday School: The DSM and the Gatekeeping of Morality
This stuff is deeply entertwined with how the medical community (and subsequently, the legal system and society at large) viewed LGBTQ people in the 60's, 70's and 80's. The old definition was on the books from 1980-1987 at least (probably until the DSM-IV in 1994, but I can't verify), which is a really long time for the entire field of psychology to be repeating these ideas.
Edit: I just found the full text, here are the relevant bits:
And here's another article from the Atlantic talking about the changing definitions of the word:
BDSM Versus the DSM
A history of the fight that got kink de-classified as mental illness
www.theatlantic.com
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I gravitate towards black women too, it is what is, this goes WAY back but I live in northern maine, so let's just say that options have always been extremely limited.
Thanks. The experience I had living with with that person affected my life and worldview in profound ways, as we literally came from two different places. Prior to him I'd honestly never sat down and had a conversation with a person outside of my race who wasn't in a position of authority.
It was so surreal to meet someone from a completely different walk of life who arrived at the same point for similar reasons.
We had growing pains but bonding over creativity, Pink Floyd, and Wu-Tang smoothed it all out.
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