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Diversity in Dating

Guest Blogger

This is a guest post by Cindy. Cindy majors in linguistics/philosophy, classics and ancient Mediterranean studies, and English at UConn. In the artificial free time she wrangles, she writes on her personal blog and Tumblr, reads (mostly fantasy and YA fiction or some overlap of the two) and works part time at an indie bookstore. She wants to become a prosecutor, Alex Cabot from Law & Order: SVU, style, or a novelist. Or both!

Fun fact: Interracial marriage in the US is on the rise. According to the infographic, whites are the least likely to marry a person of another race, whereas Asians are the most likely. Black men are both more likely than black women to marry a partner of another race; ditto for Asian women as compared to Asian men.

As a Chinese-American woman currently dating a white man, this got me thinking. There’s a lot to unpack about interracial dating. First, there’s the perception that racial fetishizing is flattering — a notion I try to disabuse people of as frequently as possible. I’ve known white men who say that they are just “more attracted” to Asian women (not too long after these remarks, I slowly edge out of the room). But of course that’s not true. They’re “more attracted” to what they think Asian women are — that is, what they want Asian women to be. As soon as they find out that I am as far from a docile, domestic doll as can be, I’m not Asian enough for them anymore.

I can understand being attracted to certain appearances. I’ll fess up: I’m particular about facial structure (mmm, strong jaws), hair, and I’m a sucker for a pair of nice arms. But though the current beau fulfills all this criteria, previous ones haven’t always. As a matter of fact, my “type” isn’t very definite. I stumbled upon my middle school diary a few months ago, and it turns out seventh-grade me was surprisingly not shallow: The only requirement I had was that I “could look at him without cringing.” Huh. No mention of race there. Nonetheless, I have only ever dated one type of man: White ones.

I’ve had some head-scratching moments about why I always dated white men. After all, I consider myself to be a progressive feminist, and as I disdain white men who fetishize Asian women. I’d be pretty horrified to find out that I am a white male fetishizer.

So why I have always dated white men? Because I’m surrounded by them. I grew up in the most typical suburban area imaginable. Almost everyone is white – I was one of three people of color in my graduating class. For better or for worse, I still have a weakness for Oxford shirts—and don’t even get me started about Oxford shoes. Honestly, there aren’t many options for men of any other race.

I also realized that growing up in such an insular environment necessarily impacted what I defined as attractive. This aha! moment came when I went back to China to visit my relatives the summer before my junior year of high school. My female cousin, who was only a few months younger, kept on pointing out guys to me, asking if I thought they were cute. “Meh,” I would respond loftily, turning up my nose. “Wait a minute, that one is!” I pointed to a young man sitting in the window, in the “Thinker” pose. My cousin looked over at him, looked back at me, and went, “Meh.” Only after I came back to the US did I realize why I found that guy acceptably attractive: He looked white.

Forty years ago, Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage in all 50 states. But only two years ago, a Louisiana justice of peace would not marry an interracial couple, claiming that, “There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage.” (Guess he hadn’t heard about one of the most famous biracial people in our country yet).

And then there are articles asking questions like “Can Soul Mates Come in Any Color?” We still see interracial dating as navigating the Other, exoticizing unfamiliar races and usually pigeonholing people into trite, tired roles. Interracial dating doesn’t have to be this mystifying — it’s dating. And sure, dating is hard, and if you’re a different color from your partner it may be more likely that you will have cultural differences, but that’s not a necessary condition. My expectation is that my partner learn Mandarin, but requirements like the ability to speak a native language can also be true intraracially. Were I later-generation Chinese, I might be even more Americanized than I am. As it is, I am happy balancing my Chinese and American identities; I imagine the same would be true if I were French or German.

Although I’ve never asked them, I’m sure my parents have had dreams of me finding a nice Chinese boy who has 15 degrees, graduated college at age 16, and is working on finding the cure for cancer. But I don’t even think that’s due to any sort of ingrained racial preference—they just sort of assumed that because they’re, well, from China. There wasn’t a lot of racial diversity in my parents’ youth, and they probably didn’t realize how that affected them—and how it would later affect me.

Now that they’ve become accustomed to my partner, they’re quite fond of him, as they’ve realized that it’s not his race that is important, but his personality and beliefs.

And after some thought, this is what I’ve decided. I hope that everyone can come to the conclusion that my parents did. I hope that we can reach a day where we can celebrate all of our cultural differences, not just in personal relationships, but as a country. And I hope that we can arrive at a day when interracial dating doesn’t need statistics or stories, because it’s become just as acceptable if not commonplace as intraracial dating.

25 thoughts on Diversity in Dating

  2. I’ve known white men who say that they are just “more attracted” to Asian women (not too long after these remarks, I slowly edge out of the room). But of course that’s not true. They’re “more attracted” to what they think Asian women are — that is, what they want Asian women to be. As soon as they find out that I am as far from a docile, domestic doll as can be, I’m not Asian enough for them anymore.

    While I enjoyed reading your post, Cindy, and appreciate its thoughtful honesty, I have to admit that it’s hard to ignore the rather glaring “It’s OK when I do it!” double standard. I can easily imagine that a portion of the white men who prefer Asian women are laboring under the precise misconception that you disparage; however, I’m extremely skeptical of your having mind-reading abilities that would allow you to make this assessment for all such men. The notion that white men expressing such a preference is enough to make you want to take your leave strikes me as rather churlish.

    BTW, you are not alone in your preference for white men, according to OKCupid’s race preference data:

    White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups’ reply rates to non-whites is terrible.

    Although whites overall were the least likely to be open to dating people outside their own race, white men were significantly more open to it than white women. In fact, out of all the racial subgroups questioned, white females were the only one in which a majority expressly stated they strongly preferred dating someone of their own race. Among all races, men overall were 22% more open-minded than women on this score.*

    Hurray for men!

    :]

    * (Of course, when it comes to age, it’s a whole ‘nother story!)

  3. @ ballgame:
    “I have to admit that it’s hard to ignore the rather glaring “It’s OK when I do it!” double standard.”

    I think it’s fair to say, “I like Asian women because I think women with long dark hair, slight builds, and dark eyes are super pretty. But if I meet a really awesome woman of any race, I will totally date her.”

    But it’s creepy to say that you “just like” Asian women better, and can’t explain why! especially when there is an Asian woman in the room. It sounds fetishy and a little creepy. And some thoughts are inside thoughts. We all have weird preferences that are just best not to announce to the world, because it will make other people uncomfortable.

  4. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this.

    Somehow, the nagging feeling that I get that “this isn’t the whole story” won’t leave me alone. Now, this is purely anecdotal, but I’ve seen this repeated too many times in isolated incidents to be convinced that there isn’t an underlying and pervasive bias at work (Note: I have no idea what Cindy’s operating biases are):

    I have had American female friends of Asian descent who almost exclusively dated white males. It’s easy to see that those women found white males beautiful, otherwise they would not be attracted to them over and over again.

    Part of the theme I started to notice, however, was that while they found their interracial status “okay”, quite a few of them seemed to look down upon other interracial unions. I’ve fielded some negative assumptions and commentary from these women about my own relationship with my husband (he’s white despite me telling them that I’m mostly attracted to black men, and I’m a black woman). I’ve caught them giving other black woman/white man couples a dirty look on the sly. I always wondered if they looked at me this way when I had my back turned.

    When some of these women have talked about “mixedness”, it is always referring to “Asian/White” ancestry. When they learn my husband is white, they express shock and disbelief until they see him in the flesh. When they talk about interracial dating, White men always come up first, then the occasional Latino man, many times Asian men get mentioned (always Americanized though), but never ever black men. Never. And we are a pretty large chunk of the minority population. Even when there are many eligible black men standing in a room, I’ve seen the behavior from many Asian women who act as though those men may as well be invisible.

    Many of those women are no longer my friends for a myriad of reasons. But still, it bothers me that I had to cut out nearly all my Asian-American girlfriends. I’d like to think that maybe, perhaps, maybe I was being too harsh. But the benefit of my doubt had been worn out with those particular ex-friends a long time ago. Cindy, I really wouldn’t have bought it if your essay was all about how you “just happened” to fall in love with a white man. I would thank you for not insulting our intelligence this way, but at this point, I’m a little uncertain as to whether my thoughts on this are colored too much by my interpreted observations, or if there was actually some grain of truth to what I think I saw.

  5. I am not sure (only anecdotal data), but it seems to me that this is an extremely culturally dependent issue. It seems to be a larger issue in the US than in many European cultures.

    Again, I am not certain about this. What are the experiences of other posters here?

    And I agree with ballgame. The OP definitely appeared hypocritical to me.

  6. One of the more annoying aspects of being part of an interracial couple is that your relationship seems to get treated as public property in a way that most other relationships don’t.

  7. Even though there is variation amongst individuals, overall, white people float to the top when it comes to perceptions of attractiveness and desirability. I feel like this article sort of danced around that, but didn’t acknowledge it directly (which is not necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think that was really the intended focus of the piece).

    I don’t think this is coincidence, or politically neutral, or just “personal preference” – maybe for an individual it’s because they socialized more with white people, or because they were more accepted by white people than other races, or who knows – but overall, looking at the bigger picture, I think it means we have internalized white supremacy – not to mention that white people are disproportionately powerful and wealthy, which people don’t usually mind having in a partner.

    I don’t think that means that finding white folks attractive is “wrong” or that we should fight our own feelings of attraction, but I do believe that this can make people of color feel not-so-great, and I also believe that as people of color are valued more (or devalued less) as humans in general, perceptions of their attractiveness and desirability will become more favourable and balanced.

    I think people are willing to believe that we all have internalized some racism, even if we’re anti-racist activists – that it may affect our attitudes in certain ways, our likelihood of hiring someone, our assessment of how much we have “in common” with someone, etc – but I think people can be really reluctant, if not outright hostile, towards the notion that who we lust for, like, or love can be influenced by racism too. Like we need to maintain at least six inches of distance between our understanding of who we are, and our understanding that we may be somewhat racist.

    I’m not saying that absolutely everyone – or the guest blogger – who prefers dating white people is doing so for racist reasons. But I think racism is at least one factor in the majority of cases. And I think that when we look at how pervasive and systemic racism is, it’s hard to believe that it *wouldn’t* affect our attraction.

    In sum, I think racism infiltrates absolutely everything, including mate selection.

  8. One of my Japanese teachers in Osaka was dating a White American man. He said he would never date American women because they were selfish. Turns out, he had dated American women, but they were Asian American. Which according to him, didn’t count.

  9. I feel like I’ve experienced something similar, only on the axis of gender, and not race.

    I’ve always identified as bisexual, but until I decided to call myself a lesbian, I never dated a single woman. I was somebody who said she didn’t care about gender in her partners, but only dated men. In my case, I think it was not because I secretly preferred men, but because when I looked around, there were an awful lot of straight men, but hardly any gay women. (I’m from one of those places gay people move away from as soon as they have the means to; there are really very, very few queer people where I grew up.)

    Am I saying that the reason some people only date one race is because that’s all that there is around them? No, not really. But there are a lot of contributing factors to attraction and availability.

    I also think that citing a race, rather than particular physical features, as part of your attraction, usually points more to (usually false) cultural assumptions, that are often incorrect or incomplete. It’s my perception that men who claim to just be attracted to asian women in general are moreso attracted to the idea of a submissive, exotic woman who covers her mouth when she giggles than they are to women with straight dark hair and uncreased eyelids. And people who claim not to be attracted to black men or black women are usually harboring some kind of racism; it’s not usually just an attraction to lighter skin tones.

    I could be wrong; these are just my perceptions.

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  11. Thanks for the comments, everyone (I am the OP). Anyway, just thought I’d address a couple of things that might have been confusing.

    I don’t WANT to be just attracted to white men, nor intend to. This was meant to be somewhat of a personal observation that because I am surrounded by white men, that’s what I’ve acclimated myself to finding “attractive.” And yes, it would be churlish of me to assume that all white men who find Asian women attractive are fetishizing, so apologies if I came across that way. I think part of my indignation is that sometimes, it seems like certain men see about me is “Asian girl” first and “Cindy” second, if that makes sense.

    Sulyp – That’s really unfortunate that that’s been your experience, although that has not been mine. Incidentally, my partner and I are in a long-term committed, monogamous relationship, so I haven’t really found ANYONE of any race attractive. The following is anecdotal, so take it as you will, but when I was growing up, there was a single Black male in my grade. He was certainly cute, and we were friends, though I never saw him date anyone. I certainly hope it wasn’t because of his race, though I can’t say. The purpose in my writing this post was me trying to figure out my experience with dating (also, I’ve only ever dated three men, so it’s not that statistically significant that they were all white).

    Anyway, I hope that might clear up some questions people had/have. I didn’t intend the tone to imply that it’s okay for me (Asian woman) to date white men but it’s not okay for them to try and express their attraction the other way around. In my personal experience, I’ve been able to quickly sort out who’s genuinely interested and who’s more interested in my family history, but my point is that we should see people as people first, and not as race.

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  13. Having hit for the proverbial cycle (first wife Chinese/Filipina, second and third wives WASPy, fourth and final wife African/Latina), I always am mystified by people who have a clear type.

    But perhaps it’s white privilege to not have to notice things enough to even develop a type.

  14. karak:
    @ ballgame:“I have to admit that it’s hard to ignore the rather glaring “It’s OK when I do it!” double standard.”

    I think it’s fair to say, “I like Asian women because I think women with long dark hair, slight builds, and dark eyes are super pretty. But if I meet a really awesome woman of any race, I will totally date her.”

    But there in lies the rub—fair skin, long hair, slight builds are inherently read as “feminine” in Western culture. So, your average East Asian women fits this ideal (putting aside the submissive stereotype). Now if you transfer long hair, slight builds, and let’s throw in hairlessness for good measure–to East Asian males—they do not fit the Western notion of masculinity.

    Personally, I think everyone reacts to the world around them differently—I grew up around mostly white men too, but I also fawned over Japanese pop stars and tv actors.

  15. I’ve dated interracially (I’m white). I largely concur with the OP about my own dating history, too; it’s been directly related to who I’m surrounded by. I went to very diverse schools growing up and dated & was attracted to guys of countless ethnic backgrounds. After I graduated, for whatever reason, my group of friends became a lot more… well, white, so I’ve dated almost exclusively white men ever since (and married one). I really think that for most people, racial “preferences” are mostly just created out of convenience.

  16. I read Cindy’s point was that some white men say they are attracted to Asian women, but an unspoken inseparable part of the package is “docile, domestic doll as can be”, which Cindy is not. It’s not hypocritical to reject that kind of guy, in fact it’s a pretty huge red flag. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all white guys that prefer Asian women are like that. Is that right Cindy?

    saurus, I completely agree with your comment. It is important to fight the stereotype that Asian men are not virile or masculine, and the stereotype of black women are not feminine. This is a sensitive topic so it’s important to tread carefully, and I felt you did a good job of asserting the issue effectively while disclaiming against some of the standard land mines that can come up when we start talking about this.

  17. That is correct, Tony. I didn’t mean to make a blanket statement on all white men, and am sorry if I didn’t make that clear. And I definitely agree with what you said about Asian men. Unfortunately, there are tons of dating stereotypes for all different races–I just figured I’d right about my experience, and add that I think that society really just needs to look past race to the individual.

  18. I’ve mostly date interracially. Mostly white men. Surprise! Has to do with the fact that my high school and college and the area I lived in college were majority white.

    My first kiss and my last serious boyfriend were Asian (well the last one was mixed race half Asian/half white). [That all happened in California. Asian-Americans are a lot larger proportion of the population in urban areas in California than in the parts of the Mid-Atlantic/NE that I was in for college]

    I studied abroad in Japan and I saw a huge difference between (mainly white) men (& some women) who genuinely fell in love with or liked individual Asian women (or men) and those who fetishized Asian women.

    I remember I had two encounters in Japan where men wanted to date me BECAUSE I was an “exotic” Latina-American woman. I was like WTF. Glad people have an interest in Latin American and diaspora cultures but date a person because you LIKE their personality.

    Makes sense that people would date who is available to them (my ex dates mostly Latina women which I suspect has something to do with that LA (where we live) is 50% Latina/o).

    I’ve seen many inter-racial relationships where it was clear that fetizing wasn’t going on. And then I’ve seen some other people who seemed to only seek a certain “other” ethnicity [I took Japanese all of college and saw some WEIRD Orientalist shit going on with a few but not most of my classmates.]

  19. I have been in two interracial relationships in my dating history, both with men and both because I was attracted to that specific person. And each has has seen very different responses from the people around me. I identify as a white woman.
    My current partner is Latino, and we have received almost no response from people based on our interracial status. It appears to be a completely non issue. His own experiences of racism, of course, are different and many, but they do not seem related in any way to our relationship.
    My first interracial relationship was a completely different experience, and I was involved with an Indigenous man. For the record, I live in Canada, which I think is an important factor in the response. Though I am unsure of the responses he heard, I was often questioned about my levels of attraction to him, if I thought he would make a suitable ‘long term’ mate, if he would be able to provide for me (that one made me mad on multiple levels!), and constant questions about what we could possibly have in common. I think that is unsurprising given the atrocious lack of respect for Indigenous people in Canada, but I was often still shocked by the blatantness of some of the comments and questions.

    I could certainly speculate about why the responses to my relationships have been different, but it would be purely speculation. And I certainly do not want to wander into the dangerous place of putting racisms on a hierarchy, but I do think that any discussion of interracial relationships needs to be situated within a specific space, as others including the OP, for example, have discussed racial demographics as a contributing factor.

  20. Ditto on the public property thing, and it applies I think not only to interracial couples, but age-mixed couples if the woman is older.

    I’m currently seeing a biracial guy 20 years my junior. I’m white. And the looks and reactions are somewhat disturbing.

  21. Ellie:
    I also think that citing a race, rather than particular physical features, as part of your attraction, usually points more to (usually false) cultural assumptions, that are often incorrect or incomplete. It’s my perception that men who claim to just be attracted to asian women in general are moreso attracted to the idea of a submissive, exotic woman who covers her mouth when she giggles than they are to women with straight dark hair and uncreased eyelids. And people who claim not to be attracted to black men or black women are usually harboring some kind of racism; it’s not usually just an attraction to lighter skin tones.

    I could be wrong; these are just my perceptions.

    So… white men are the only men around, then? Ellie, the way you phrased your post, with “unmarked” men and marked women of color, strongly indicated that, and that’s well, white-defaulting.

    I don’t think you intended for that to happen, but there we go.

    But perhaps it’s white privilege to not have to notice things enough to even develop a type.

    Hugo, It _is_ white privilege to be afforded the choices of dating interracially to develop a type that way. The mainstream acknowledges white-PoC interracial dating a lot of the time, but not PoC-PoC interracial dating (John Cho/Gabrielle Union in Flash Forward was a big fucking deal – but then again, Lucy Liu/Jack Yang (Cashmere Mafia) was also a big fucking deal, so I’m not sure what that points to). Or even intraracial intercultural dating by PoCs, which is on the uprise in the Asian American community as I understand.

  22. Raincloud: So… white men are the only men around, then?Ellie, the way you phrased your post, with “unmarked” men and marked women of color, strongly indicated that, and that’s well, white-defaulting.

    Where in my post did I say I was only talking about white men?

  24. “The mainstream acknowledges white-PoC interracial dating a lot of the time.”

    Nonsense! Where? In the Bachelor Show? In the Bachelorette show? Dont see any Poc-dating whites, not even Asian women with white men. How many Poc-white dating you see in mainstream movies. They had one two second scene in Hawaii five o where Grace Park (Asian) kisses a white guy..but that was it. and that day the rating declined particularly among white women. Actually I have seen more black men-Asian women couples on TV…Remember Isiah Washington and Sandra Oh in Gray’s Anatomy? Have not seen any Asian woman-white male couples let alone the other way around. Educate me if you have seen it as often as the Grace Anatomy scenes between a black man and Asian woman!

  25. And one more thing…there is a higher probability of an educated high caste Brahmin woman in/from India marrying someone of lower caste (although with her religion) than an educated white American woman dating or marrying outside her race (even if it is the same religion…Christianity) and that is pretty telling as far Indians are concerned! Or may be I am wrong, for many white women worshipping their white skin color is their religion!

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