They don't quite say "No Blacks, No Gypsies, No Asians", but it's not far off (in fact, some of them do say utterly appalling things like that).
But as well as being indicative of a repellent brain/personality, I'm always struck by how impossible I find it to make such sweeping generalisations.
Not because I'm an angel (Hell, no), but because I have been blessed with an all-encompassing lust.
That means even such potentially unpromising looks as "ginger and freckles" can be a bit of a turn-on.
As, indeed, here.
If I were describing my Ideal Man (assuming Keanu wasn't available, of course), I suspect I wouldn't necessarily put "ginger and freckles" towards the top.
But we can all now see how foolish that might be, when this lovely chap might have been willing and available, only to be turned away by my own slimey prejudices.
Heaven forbid I ever put him -- or me -- in that position.
Though, to be frank, his winkie is a bit on the giant side for my tastes...
10 comments:
'slimey prejudices'? Not a bit of it. It's a question of artistic sensibilities. :-) I mean, my a/s is smooth and blond - unless something hairy and brown-eyed happens by, of course!
Oh goodness, PC can't overrule the heart. Much as one might chide oneself for turning one's gaze from the over 15 stone and over 40 the fact is that's how one may be made - and if the same internal I-know-not-whats say something remarkably discriminatory one may feel a bit guilty but that's the way one is. And the odd thing is that the most surprising things can happen, and sometimes do!
No offense, but this is sort of ridiculous. It's like saying gays discriminate against women. In terms of race we're actually hard-wired (in terms of brain chemistry) to want someone of our own 'kind'. Doesn't make us racist one bit. Some people are wired differently in this regard (I'm sure we can all relate) - my Asian best friend has a thing for white girls. Interracial attraction is obviously not unheard of, but it's a statistic quite like ours - 5-10%.
On that topic, I don't think considering the - gasp - possibility of sleeping with a white guy with freckles really makes you qualify to be a soul brother... :)
Hey Todd: no offence, but that's complete and utter bollocks.
"Interracial attraction is obviously not unheard of, but it's a statistic quite like ours - 5-10%"
So how come in the UK the proportion of Afro-Caribbean men with white (British) or Asian partners (as opposed to partners of "their own kind") is over 45%?
There's a whole bunch of reasons why rates of miscegenation might vary in different communities including, for instance, ingrained racism in the dominant culture, levels of interracial socialisation (including through, eg, education structures), class mixtures/social mobility and their own complex associations with race, whether the dominant culture emphasises assimilation or multiculturalism, etc, etc.
I have not read a single serious academic paper which demonstrates your "hard wiring" theory: I'd love to read one, so if you could provide a reference I really would be grateful.
In the meantime, I look forward to you explaining to me how some people are "hard wired" to fetish objects such as shoes, and what proportion of the population is so wired.
Easy, tiger. (Have never said that before. Felt appropriate. :) )
It's for the same reason that before the 60s most gay men were cordially or even lovingly married to women - circumstance. If you're a minority member sure you're going to encounter people of the majority race, and may date/fall in love with them. That doesn't necessarily mean you'd pick that person to be your mate from a line-up, even with attractive personality traits given.
People have a preference, people are hard-wired towards certain things (member of race A - other members of race A, fetishists - fetish, pedophiles - children, etc.). Doesn't mean that such behaviour will always be exclusive (it may be), but it will always be preferred.
I don't recall where I got the statistic, but feel free to research it, I'm quite sure I didn't make it up.
Todd: it's your use of the term "hard wired" that I'm objecting to -- and you prove the point by using as an example gay men marrying women in the 1950s.
To assert with any confidence that there is a "natural" level of miscegenation of 5-10% you need to find a society where there is as little racism as possible to measure statistically "normal" levels of miscegenation among humans -- any other society is, by your own logic, going to have suppressed rates (just as there were fewer "self-confessed (sic) homosexuals" in the 1950s).
You quote a figure of 5-10% as "normal" -- but I have given you an example of 45% (and that's from racist, class-riddled Britain). How do you explain that figure? Is it that Black men are unable to find any Black women? Is it that White girls are easy while Black women won't put out? I can think of dozens of stereotypical (and largely offensive) possible reasons, but I don't believe any of them.
And that's before we approach issues like the idea some of us might be "hard wired" to find sexual attraction in shoes... what possible explanation could there be for that?
A google search has not led me to discover a single academic paper that supports your contention, so I have to repeat that, no offence, I think you're talking utter bollocks.
PS: I keep forgetting to ask -- people from mixed race backgrounds: what is their "natural" hard-wiring?
We may have to agree to disagree, I'm afraid I don't have references on hand and I'm not inclined to look for them. Like I said, I do remember having read something much along the same lines as what I have argued, in an academic context, though I honestly can't recall where. Your assumption that I'm lying is needlessly confrontational.
Much of this seems also seems fairly common-sense to me. I come from a context that I consider to be fairly race-neutral, I'm American-Australian Jewish, my best mate Malay-Chinese-Australian and my other friends from various other exotic places and ethnic groups involving yet more hyphens. We quite openly discuss sexual/relationship preferences in terms of gender, age and race and don't consider it to be sexist, ageist or racist in the slightest. This all seems a little 'PC-hysteria' to me.
I'm dreadfully sorry if you were planning on getting into a proper argument involving referencing and thinly veiled insinuations of heterosexuality, I'm not quite in the mood. Also, it's 02:36 and I'm tired like hell. :)
Blimey. So, let me try to summarise:
You think something I have written is "ridiculous" and you don't hesitate for a second before using that word in your first comment -- a tad confrontational, I would have thought.
You know you've read something somewhere that proves I am utterly wrong while you are right, but you're not inclined to spend 10 seconds googling for a reference (something even I've tried to do on your behalf, and failed).
You're not willing to discuss the implications for your "5-10%" theory of the well-known 45% figure from Britain.
You're not willing to accept there might be even the slightest parallel with the historical example (that you yourself drew first) of the proportion of homosexuals in a homophobic 1950s world compared with today, versus the proportion of inter-racial relationships in a racist 2010 world compared with what that number might be in a less-racist world.
And now I'm the one who's being "needlessly confrontational" and "assuming you're lying"?
The dangers of your approach to discourses such as this are well illustrated in your last comment, where you take your personal experience and that of your friends and seem to assume that it is a human universal, applicable to all.
I'm certainly not making "thinly veiled insinuations of heterosexuality" (I have absolutely no idea how you could have inferred that from anything I've written!).
But can I suggest you read the original post again? If I tell you before you re-read it that it is supposed to be a giant piss-take against my own prejudices, mocking myself for being a closed-minded idiot, does that not make it slightly less offensive to your sense that your core values are being aggressively challenged?
Come on! -- look at the very last comment, the one in blue (for emphasis!), where I recognise that my entire blog is built on a dumb prejudice (that small winkies are beautiful and big ones ugly) -- is that not a clue...?!
Yours, non-confrontationally, I hope.
xx
If you found my initial comment to be confrontational I do apologise, it was most definitely not intended that way. Like I said, I'm American/Australian and Australians and Americans are peoples who don't really dance around their points as much as Brits seem to - I grew up in a context where 'son of a bitch' and 'I hate you' are compliments. It's why I have to pepper my comments with smileys in an abortive attempt to convey a non-hostile tone. :)
My comment and replies are based largely on something I had read years ago in a book the name of which I simply can't recall. Sociology is not my field. The intention of my comment was to point out an interesting stat I read somewhere and note that to me, coming from the context I do, it seems a little over-the-top to claim racism in this case. I wasn't writing a thesis abstract, I was commenting on a blog.
It is indeed possible this same-race preference may just be a remnant of our childhood conditioning - much like when one realises they're gay, they feel a sense of loss at the whole 'white-picket-fence life with a wife and kids'-life they'd been raised to want. It's possible the same-race preference is simply circumstantial, if you're around white people all the time, when you imagine your ideal partner they're probably going to be white. I'm not sure I agree with these, but I honestly don't have the breadth of knowledge (or will) to argue for or against them in any cogent academic fashion.
Oh, and the 'accusations of heterosexuality' bit was a joke - hence the smiley. I know, I know, I'm a master of comedy.
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