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MadameMarque -> RE: Do descriptors such as white (or black), make a person sound racist to you? (2/28/2014 6:18:20 AM)
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I agree with these remarks of AlexisANew.
Of course, there's no need to announce your own race in the CM personals, because they have a category that you can select, and one can search by race, there. Is it racist to offer that category?
A person might have a preference for a certain race or races for different reasons. If it's for physical traits, you might accuse us of being superficial or fetishizing people. In any case, it might be called racist, if it's a racial preference.
It should be acknowledged that there really are general cultural differences, if a person's upbringing was influenced by a culture different than your own. But of course, you still can't assume much on that basis. For one thing, you can't assume a person *was* brought up with different cultural influences, by race alone. And if they were, it's still all generalities. If someone was brought up with the traditions and values of another culture, though, it would be unwise to turn an blind eye to that, because that's part of them, too, and it is real.
At a certain time in my life, I realized I was more attracted to Asian men. That's it. I tend to believe that it's because my intuition tells me that there's someone or someones important to me, to whom that attraction is guiding me. But the fact remains.
As AlexisANew points out, not all acknowledgement of race is viewed equally. If an Asian man mentioned that he especially loves Asian women, I doubt anyone would anxiously jump in to say that he's racist.
It may be fetishizing or eroticizing of the different, exoticism, when you're talking about initial attraction. People of a different color hair, eyes, or skin, older, younger, taller, shorter, people with a different accent, of a different culture, - it doesn't have to be just race. Or conversely, it could be attraction to the familiar.
I think that the question is, once you find someone with whom you find chemistry, whom you find attractive sexually, are you still aware that they're an individual and remember that you have to get to know them, in order to know them? Hopefully, you don't view them as some exotic sampler or as a mere fetish delivery system. That's something many of us run into just because we're kinky, all other features aside. Of course, that can also get you a lot of game, if you don't mind that.
I don't mind being someone's type, initially, because what is initial attraction, anyway? I would maintain that it includes a dose of personal chemistry that isn't strictly physical.
For those who enjoy casual encounters, it needn't go any farther than that. But I am not one of those whose particularly casual.
For myself, I want people who have the understanding to assume that I'm more than the sum of my parts, as are they.
quote:
ORIGINAL: AlexisANew
I can see how that would come over but then I have to ask myself, why would I feel my hackles go up if I saw, 'white man here', but not feel it was racist if they said 'black man here'?
Lots of black people write about their colour in their profiles. They often even name themselves in a way that leaves no mistake to what ethnicity they are. I have never thought any of that as at all racist.
My sister only ever dated black men. She eventually married one and has 3 beautiful mixed race kids. I don't see her as racist because she doesn't find white men attractive, I just see it as her personal preference.
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