Welcome back, dorks. We’ve processed the messaging habits of over a million people and are about to basically prove that, despite what you might’ve heard from the Obama campaign and organic cereal commercials, racism is alive and well. It would be awesome if the other major online dating players would go out on a limb and release their own race data, too. I can’t imagine they will: multi-million dollar enterprises rarely like to admit that the people paying them those millions act like turds. But being poor gives us a certain freedom. To alienate all our users. So there.
When I first started looking at first-contact attempts and who was writing who back, it was immediately obvious that the sender’s race was a huge factor. Here are just a handful of the numbers that illustrate that:
The takeaway here is that although race shouldn’t matter in messaging, it does. A lot.
First of all, how do we know that race shouldn’t matter? Are we just making some after-school-special assumption that “true love is colorblind?” more compatibility usually
means more repliesNo, we’re not: we know race shouldn’t matter to replies because the races all match each other more or less evenly, and reply rate correlates to matching. That is, more compatibility generally means more replies.
On OkCupid you create your own unique matching system, and that means your better matches are people you actually want talk to. Below is a graph showing match percentages vs. reply rates for a random sample of 500,000 people.As you can see, in general, the better you match someone, the more likely you are to reply to a first message from them.
We can see this principle in action when we look at our trusty control, the Zodiac. Here are the match and reply rates side-by-side, with similar rates colored yellow. There’s no real need to inspect the numbers; just observe the similar colors.
- Throughout this post, yellowish colors are short-hand for “neutral” and red and green indicate “strong preference.”
People of the various Zodiac signs match each other all at roughly the average rate, and, as we would expect, they reply to messages similarly. In general, the correlation between match percentage and reply rate means that whenever we compare the match/reply charts for a given breakdown of the population, they should look about the same. However, this, like so many other fine assumptions, totally breaks down when race gets involved:
Again, don’t bother squinting, just check out the colors. We’ll soon look very closely at these tables.
So here’s last week’s compatibility by race table (I explained how we can confidently measure “compatibility” in that post). This is a blow-up of the leftmost table above:
As you can see, the races all match each other roughly evenly: good news. It means all other things being equal, two people, of whatever race, should have the same chance to have a successful relationshp. But now let’s look at the table of how individuals actually reply to each other’s messages. First we’ll examine messages sent by men to women (I know our gay readers are interested in same-sex versions of these tables, there’s a link to them here and at the end of this post):
The numbers on the perimeter of the table are the weighted average rates for each column/row. Here’s what we can know:
- Black women write back the most. Whether it’s due to talkativeness, loneliness, or a sense of plain decency, black women are by far the most likely to respond to a first contact attempt. In many cases, their response rate is one and a half times the average, and, overall, black women reply about a quarter more often that other women.
- White men get more responses. Whatever it is, white males just get more replies from almost every group. We were careful to preselect our data pool so that physical attractiveness (as measured by our site picture-rating utility) was roughly even across all the race/gender slices. For guys, we did likewise with height.
- 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. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%. It’s here where things get interesting, for white women in particular. If you look at the match-by-race table before this one, the “should-look-like” one, you see that white women have an above-average compatibility with almost every group. Yet they only reply well to guys who look like them. There’s more data on this towards the end of the post.
Let’s see what happens when it’s the women writing the messages to men.
- Men don’t write black women back. Or rather, they write them back far less often than they should. Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder.
- White guys are shitty, but fairly even-handed about it. The average reply rate of non-white males is 48.1%, while white guys’ is only 40.5%. Basically, they write back about 20% less often. It’s ironic that white guys are worst responders, because as we saw above they get the most replies. That has apparently made them very self-absorbed. It’s interesting that white males do manage to reply to Middle Eastern women. Is there some kind of emergent fetish there? As Middle Easterners are becoming America’s next racial bogeyman, maybe there’s some kind of forbidden fruit thing going on. (Perhaps a reader more up-to-date on his or her Post-Colonial Theory can step in here? Just kidding. Don’t.)
Finally, here are a couple tables that shed further light on our discussion. These are site-wide answers to a couple user-written match questions. They barely need any explanation: one comments on the other, really. Together they shed more light on the theory/practice schizophrenia of people’s racial attitudes.
It’s probably not just OkCupid users that are like this. I don’t want anyone walking away from all this thinking that OkCupid users exceptionally horrible people. It’s likely that any dating site (and indeed any collection of people) would exhibit messaging biases similar to what I’ve written up. Any dating site probably
has these biasesAccording to our internal metrics, at least, OkCupid’s users are better-educated, younger, and far more progressive than the norm, so I can imagine that many sites would actually have worse race stats. But like I said at the beginning, we’ll probably never know. See you next week.
For a further discussion of race and replies, the same-sex equivalents of this post’s data are here.
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I must disagree frankly very strongly with the use of the word racism in this post. What if you say had a weakness for red heads, there is only one “race” that has red-heads in any significant numbers. It does not make you racist to have preferences for looks. OK response rates are very highly correlated to looks as you have shown. People are going to find some races more attractive than others therefore because races are races because they look different. Duh.
100 percent of whites are stuck up anyway. Fuck white bitches!!!
I am a black woman in her mid forty’s, attractive, and educated who has tried on line dating. I very seldon initiated contact, and the majority of the men who contacted me where white. They were typcially men I did not find attractive or did not consider a good match. However, I responded out of politeness to thank them for their interest and to wish them luck in their search. (I guess I helped to inflate the side of black females responding to white males…lol) The ones I maintained on line contact with often spoke of never dating black women in the past because it was not “acceptable” to their friends, family or other people important in their lives, or black women showed no interest in them or they just didn’t want to deal with the pressure of white/black dating. Notice I did not say interracial dating. I have found that some people have problems with certain races/ethnicities dating but accept black/hispanic; asian/white etc. Something else I encountered on line was white males bashing white females (red flag) with the “princess mentality” or sense of entitlement. These men would profess their love and preference for black women and an appreciation for our culture. Yet, these same men have married twice and sometimes even three times to guess what…white women. It appears they always managed to date black women in between their marriages but never found one sutiable to marry…or maybe it was vice versa. Of course these men are now no longer in their prime, not aging well, quite overweight, having financial issues, and therefore, are no longer able to attract the type of women they are complaining about. I had to educate one man that I as a black woman desire love, respect, admiration, security similiar to many other women regardless of race, and perhaps it was something inside of HIM that made him feel certain races/ethnicities of women should accept or expect less. Needless to say, I no longer date on line, but it was truly a learning experience!
No one is saying its racist for Whites to date Whites. Most races prefer their own out of familiarity etc. However, when there is a particular sign that particular groups are being excluded SIMPLY b/c of race then yes it *IS* a race issue.
it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Black women need to realize that the media has done quite a number on us and frankly, its not worth the time or energy IMO to date online. And if you are going to do it. Just stop contacting men. if they are interested they will contact you.
In response to AN ASIAN,
Funny that you would speak of “inferiority complex” of certain groups when in Most Asian countries all you do is worship anything White. I guess that explains the huge number of Asian women breaking their necks to get anything White they can get thier hands on? So maybe take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why YOUR PEOPLE (ASIANS) are so obsessed with looking White and putting White “beauty” before your own in your OWN COUNTRIES. I see more Asians trying and wanting to grab a White mate than any other group.
How dare you. Black women pointing out the fact they are simply being excluded based on RACE is not about us having inferioity complexes. In Fact, most Black women are VERY proud of who were are and our race (unlike ASAIN WOMEN), we overwhelmingly prefer our own race of men (to a fault) and we tend not to run after any other races than our own. So don’t try that please.
Most black women could care less about white males and dating one. But the ones who have taken to online daing and deciding to try other races are finding that they don’t stand a chance SIMPLY b/c they are Black. And frankly its not Fair to them especially if they have all of the great qualities that other race sof women have.
And that is what the analysis of this trend is about. Not being mad about whites wanting whites or having WHAT YOU REFER TO AS “inferiority complexes” How laughable, especially coming from an Asian. LOL
LOL @ brian’s post. The more I read these posts the more i realize that Black women SURELY aren’t missing out.
LOL @ your post Faith. I have to laugh when people EXPECT Black women to settle for any ole loser who thinks we should just take what we can get.
But you’ve got the right idea ( i personally think online dating for Black women is a complete waste of time). And by the looks of this study – IT IS. lol Online dating can and does work for some. But from what i can see there isn’t much to write home about in terms of the quality of people and/or men.
Black men on the other hand seem to have bought into it as they want to date anything but black.
KIA
How could you say that Black Men have brought into dating anything but black?
Look at the study that was done.. Black Women dont seem to desire Black Men neither..
Matter of fact, Black Women and Black Men seem to not see each other as Desirable Mates…
And the thing about you Black Women is that you NEVER REALLY LISTEN TO A BLACK MAN’S POINT OF VIEW
You BLACK WOMEN make it hard for a Black Man to get with you… A lot of you are not attracted to a Black Man that doesnt fit the typical RAP VIDEO profile, Until after a lot of ya’ll are older, after a kid or a bunch of kids and not as Wanted…
It’s only then, Do I see a lot of you Black Women open up your Options towards Different TYPES of Black Man.. Black Men that dont look like Little Wayne Clones…
Thank you MD
The type of Black Women that should be having a lot of kids are not… Whereas those on Welfare, and other forms of Aid, are having kids left and right… It’s just sad to Me…
for Blk girl
COME ON… STOP IT
WHITES are not Racist for saying that they Date or Prefer People of their Color..
Dating and marrying encompasses a lot… It’s about families, it’s about lineage, It’s about maintaining a certain look.. It’s about maintaining a certain culture… etc..etc..
So if they want to maintain that or keep that, How does that make them racist..
Look at the study again… IT’S NOT JUST WHITES THAT PREFER WHITE SKIN
It’s Blacks also… Black Women and Black Men…
So, before you write that it’s Black Men abandoning, check the Numbers and you would See that if Other Races of Men wanted Black Women in High Numbers, they Would also be abandoning Black Men…
From the tone and wording of your comments, it seems that You are just Mad, Hurt that White Men and other races of Men dont want you… So you call them Racist for that…
Maybe if more of you Black Women stayed Unique and Stop trying to imitate White women, in terms of wearing weaves, contact lenses.. Other races of men would see you ladies as a catch..
Why go for an imitation white women, when White Men can basically have the real thing?
Make them want something different… Wear your sexy afros and flaunt what makes you Black and Beautiful…
Faith
I agree with you on one thing..
Online seems to bring out, many, many people that are past their prime, overweight, have a bunch of kids without fathers, people with fixation or fetishes for color and a sleuth of other issues…
Essentially, not the type of people that make Attractive Mates…
That’s why I prefer dating OFFLINE… At least offline, I attract what appears to be people that are Attractive Mates and not with all the Baggage..
On a personal note, I find that Some White Women online, those that have reduced options due to how they look or bad choices they made in their life, feel that even though other Men dont want them, Black Men will…
So I can relate to you, when you say the white men feel that other races should somehow accept or expect less and to just value their white skin…
Glad you wised up and no longer do the online dating…
Progressive Black man – In a nutshell – you are sad. I would argue that Black women run from Black men like you for sure.
And no one is mad about whites preferring whites. The study was done and we are pointing out SIMPLY that race does play a part in who one chooses. And I am of the belief outside factors (media, society) play into who are going to be the more desirable and least desirable.
At any route. I’m done with this blog. I have made my points. I hope the black women on this site and others (being excluded for thier race) wise up and close thier accounts and do more offline dating. To me online dating is a waste when people exclude you simply for your race. Why waste time, energy and money for dating sites where no one will respond simply b/c you are Black.
Thanks OK Cupid for this study I think many more Black women are aware of what’s working against them and will pull out of online dating and start interacting in the real world.
“progressive” Black “man” – God help you!
blk girl
How exactly am I sad? Because I state the obvious?
You argue that Black Women are being excluded simply for their race and that they wont get responses because they are black..
But what you also fail to address is that BLACK WOMEN DO THE SAME THING..
BLACK WOMEN ALSO EXCLUDE BLACK MEN, simply because of their Race…
BLACK MEN also DONT get responses from BLACK WOMEN, because they are black..
What’s up with that?
So it’s okay For BLACK WOMEN and BLACK MEN to be “racist” against each other, but Not Okay for those that Are not Black to Exclude Black People due to their Skin color?
That doesnt make sense… Like I’ve said in my first post..
Why Call it racism when US BLACKS do the same thing towards our OWN…
You also stated;
that Black Women prefer their Own Race of Men and prefer them to a Fault..
If’s that’s the case, How Come this Study shows that Black Men are the Least Desirable group of Men, when Black Women come online to Look for Men?
Which Confirms my theory…
You Black Women ONLY DEAL with Black Men, because You are not as Desired by other Races of Men..
So to ameliorate that fact, A lot of you Black Women claim to Desire Black Men…
I strongly suspect that YOUR ANGER (based on the tone and insults from your replies) stems from the Fact that you want White Men and they Dont want You as Much as you want them…
So you call them Racist and every name in the Book, when in fact, if we are using their preference for non-black skin as the basis for calling them Racist,, Black People are also Racist Against Each other..
As we also Desire Each other the Least…
I think many of these picky picky white people, as they get older, and often physically less desirable (let’s face it, white people tend to age terribly), they also tend to suddenly expand the pool of people they are willing to date. This definitely applies more to white women than white men.
Age is an equalizer.
so black women are less likely to respond a black man then any other man. thats fucked up
um..the Obama campaign never said racism was over. If anything they tried to show that people could rise above race when it comes to a common good. Racism is omething that right wing nut jobs say to justify bashing programs like affirmative action.
We have to stop this, enough already!!! Race-race-race….racism. I’m sick of it I’m recently divorce after 24 years of marriage. My black husband was a serial cheater and I got sick of it. I waited until my 3 sons were grown before I left him to start my life over. I’m on 3 online dating sites. You have to open yourself up to people. And OMG!!! I’m having the time of my life!!!!! I’m petite, a size 6 and 50 years old but look 35. I’m educated (Ph.d candidate) dark skinned, attractive with long hair. I attract and date business/professional White men, Black men, Spanish men, a few Asian and Indian men. What I’ve discovered is that they’re all the same…basically. Some are wonderful and others are jerks. As for the sistas, take care of yourselves; mentally, spiritually and physically. If you walk around angry all the time because other women of other races are getting more play than you, then perhaps it’s the vibe that you’re giving off. Be confident and self-assured…all men are attracted to that.
To blk girl
I’m an Asian female and I choose only to date Asian males. Nice try. Don’t tell me I’m a hypocrite. For your information I disapprove of the white fetish many Asians have.
Yes, I do believe that you have an inferiority complex. Why else would you be so OUTRAGED at the fact that some people from some races aren’t interested in you? So what if they aren’t? Move on and find someone who is interested in you.
“Most black women could care less about white males and dating one. But the ones who have taken to online daing and deciding to try other races are finding that they don’t stand a chance SIMPLY b/c they are Black. And frankly its not Fair to them especially if they have all of the great qualities that other races of women have.”
There is nearly 7 billion people on the planet, if you want to ‘try other races’, then there is PLENTY of choice. Quit whining.
I didnt use this site, i only used black dating sites, but i occasionally got messages from white men, non of which i ever considered dateable for me personally, but i always responded because a) its polite and b) i was flattered.
Its flattering if someone finds you attractive, and i guess i was entrigued as to what attracted them to me, but that was as far as it went.
And no, its not racist to prefer your own race, whether you are white, black or turquoise. I think white people are cool, but i don’t see them as dating material for me personally.
I think this chart starts drama where it does not need to be…
People have preferences. Races exist. So What.
I think it is stupid to say that, because “everyone does not get equally replied to
means RACISM Must be involved…really???
Let every race out there know that their is a spot for picture for a reason- because their are some butt ugly fuglys out their.
Who knows what else?
All I know is that I have seen some ugly out their, and Ugly has no racial preference because every race gets a few uglys.
But thank the good lord that love is blind, because I am attracted to more Picasso’s
and I don’t know why but I am. But some like the typical, who cares, get over it, it more than likely has nothing to do with you…Good love hunting.
The creators and administrators of this site knew what they were doing when they set out to stir up this pot. It is painfully obvious that they started either their “research”, their “report” of said “research”, or both, on one or more of the following erroneous assumptions in the first place:
1. It is fallacious to assume, or assert, that NOT desiring an INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP with someone of a certain RACE makes you racist. This is baloney. The pursuit of defining racism should stick to the formal institutions in life: work, school, church, etc. It has NO PLACE in the bedroom.
Who or what one prefers to date boils down less to racism and more to physical comfortability. Race DOES determine to the LARGEST EXTENT what you will physically look like. I, for one, like a certain number of looks in the women I choose to pursue or allow to pursue me.
In my view, this was an obvious POLITICAL move on OKCupid’s part. Plainly obvious, really.
2. OKCupid admins assert the following:
“First of all, how do we know that race shouldn’t matter? Are we just making some after-school-special assumption that ‘true love is colorblind?’ No, we’re not: we know race shouldn’t matter to replies because the races all match each other more or less evenly, and reply rate correlates to matching. That is, more compatibility generally means more replies.”
Is compatibility limited to mere ideals, politics, hobbies, and education? No, of course not. It may be true that animals of different species may mate, but does this make the norm of animals that do not mate outside their species unacceptable? Again, no. What happened here was that the study of whatever data was reportedly obtained was gone over with another false start: That the EXCEPTION to the RULE … SHOULD BE THE RULE. How illogical, and completely amateur.
How can I be racist for determining like I only want to be intimate with girls of a certain look to them, a certain smell, even? How can I be racist for choosing only or only White women, or only Asian women, to share my physical intimacy with? I definitely give credit and mutual respect where credit and mutual respect are due to persons of all races in the places that matter everywhere else but my bedroom: work, school, church, in the public, etc. etc.
In addition to the aforementioned errors that OKCupid committed here, I found others, the assertion of which are not only NOT supported by the given data, but are actually CONTRADICTED by it. Incredible.
How impudent of OKCupid to attempt to make us gentelmen and gentlewomen feel somehow guilty over WHO WE PREFER IN OUR INTIMACY AND IN OUR BEDROOMS.
This is nothing but a ruse, a rabble-rousing, if you will.
I, for one, don’t appreciate this poor attempt to stir up politics of race ON A DATING SITE.
OKCupid, you should be ASHAMED of yourself.
seriously, it’s not that deep to say that based on the trends (that’s aren’t 100% anywhere), that racism is a factor. racism exists and until ppl can admit to it and address it, it will continue to act on society in ways that we PRETEND are merely a result of choice.
did any of you actually LOOK at the charts. in the numbers given, more women than men in a given racial group were NOT interested in interracial dating, across the board. white men had the greatest options, white women get the greatest response from men across the board, black women the least response across the board, asian women replied less to non-asian/non-white men who wrote them BUT got greater responses FROM black men who THEY wrote.
there are a number of different trends noted and b/c this is about race it is not absurd or out of the question or at all unbelievable to say that racism is involved b/c…and i know some of you can’t deal w/ it but…RACISM EXISTS. that doesn’t mean that EVERY decision is racist but that these trends indicate something to pay attention to. and as a black woman, it’s not something that seems new to me. to recognize that in certain contexts my race may work against me on the dating front is not a sign of an inferiority complex. it’s a fact. just as racism works against some ppl, privilege is at work as well. to recognize the contexts in which we experience privilege (when you experience it–and we all do in some context or another), we also SHOULD acknowledge it–and it doesn’t makes you an egomaniacal ass to do so. and in Western and other societies, whiteness is privilege. grow up ppl. racism exists. it’s not everything but it’s there. and until we deal with it, it will continue to play a larger role in our lives than we admit to.
At some point you have to start telling these progressive liberals to take all this race garbage and SHOVE IT! WHO CARES! TAKE A WALK OFF A CLIFF ALREADY!
I’m one of the white males who wants a Persian, Arab, or East Indian woman. They tend to have the sexiest eyes in the world in my opinion, usually with complementary facial features. I want one bad! grrrr.
I tend to agree with other post that say using the word racism is not really suitable. Thats a faulty correlation. I generally date white guys because I’m more attracted to that skin tone and hair colors associated with it. I like the contrast of dark hair on a white guy, and I like redheads. But that doesn’t mean I have any dislike for other races. I’m more attracted to some than others, but that is purely based on sexual attraction. I don’t think any less of a person because of that and sexual attraction has very little to do with my choice of friends in peer groups.
This is all crap, people reply to who they are attracted to and/or whomever has something interesting or witty to say. Sometimes that’s inline with whatever preferences they have and sometimes it’s not. I’ve gotten lots of messages from men, and seriously, the only men that I replied to black white or otherwise, were the ones that actually said something other than, “you’re cute”, “whats up” or “you should contact me”, Why?
People have a right to choose to date who they want based on whatever criteria they deem important, be that cultural, phenotypic or whatever, it’s THEIR CHOICE. I’m from the Caribbean, I personally prefer not to date Americans white or black, unless they’re first gen in this country because culturally, we’re too far apart. And that’s my preference.
TO AN ASIAN,
Sweetie, you have some real AUDACITY being an Asian Female pointing the finger to BLACK WOMEN about having inferiority complexes. If White males decided yesterday they no longer wanted Asian females as counterparts we’d see a mass suicide of American Asian women jumping off bridges! You as an Asian woman should be the LAST to point the finger to inferiority complexes. Half of American Asian women are with WHITE mates. Clean up your own backyard lady before you DARE point the finger. Asain females are in NO POSITION to accuse anyone of inferiority complexes when its obvious your gender suffers the most from it. To the point where i am almost SHOCKED if i see an American Asian woman with an Asian male.
Black women are FARING a whole lot better in the self love dept than ASIAN women are. So what a few online Black women complain about being excluded simply b/c of race. Thta has ABSOLUTELY no correalation to having an INFERIORITY COMPLEX. How dare you! Why don’t you go tell the rest of your Asian sisters to “love themselves” and stop harboring infeiority complexes to the point where 45% of you prefer WHITE MALES over your own.
You would be HARD PRESSED to find an American Black woman that would prefer a White male over her own race. In fact, MOST Black women PREFER men of color before White. So wth are you talking about? I am sick of Black women being marginalized simply b/c we express concern over trends that outcast us for something as stupid as RACE. It has nothing to do with us BEGGING or groveling for a particular race of men and damn sure nothing to do with having an inferiority complex. We are proud of our race yet b/c our men have so much self hatred we Black women have been put in a position where have no choice but to seek other races for companionship due to MANY factors that correalate to Black men and LACK of compatible eligile ones for the many Black women out there. i suggest you get that.
Progressive Blk Man,
Whatever. In the real world MOST Black women prefer Black males. HOWEVER due to circumstances and numbers and LACK of compatible Black males for a number of Black women, more Black women have opened up thier dating pool to other races. And who is to say that the Black men on this site are desirable mates. maybe that is why black women didn’t respond to them as much because black men have a TENDENCY to believe that black women should take “what we can get” of you Black males as long as you have a few good teeth and a penis. Sorry we have standards too babe!
ultimatley in an IDEAL world Black women and Black men would stick together and live happily ever after. Black men have abandoned Black women and we are now in this position where we have to look outward for other races. Its unfortunate to say the least….
Ruby,
It looks like Black women being POLITE in responding to men who they are not really interested in is working against them in the NUMBERS of this study. That is what the study doesn’t tell you – what are people responding *to*. looks like Black women should do like everyone else and say to hell with responding to those you are not interested in. but then again, as many Black women on here stated they were trying to be polite. *imagine that in this world – being poilte*
That is why this study can’t be taken toooo seriously b/c we do not know the inside factors of such.
I’d like to see a deeper inspection of how “attractiveness” data plays into this. I mean, I at least like to tell myself that’s what the difference for me is. Like, I don’t have some fundamental hatred for black women. I just don’t find their common features to be that attractive.
If I said I preferred blonds over redheads, you wouldn’t accuse me of being racist.
So, the post says that the response data was weighted for similar-attractiveness-rated people. But what exactly does that mean? People are rating certain others as attractive, but still not replying to them?
Or do the less-replied-to races also get rated less? Honestly, if I see a black woman’s thumbnail in my search results, I’m less likely to even look at her profile, let alone rate her attractiveness. So, could the attractiveness data be skewed in that regard? We know from this data that a minority of men are attracted to black women. So if that minority are also the only ones doing the ratings….
Anyhow, my point is that preferring white women doesn’t make me racist, just superficial.
I challenge any who reads this post, and disagrees with my logic, to engage me in this debate. This is completely ridiculous:
ij:
1. “seriously, it’s not that deep to say that based on the trends (that’s aren’t 100% anywhere), that racism is a factor.”
You would be right, if the trends, and the data they are extrapolated from, were pulled from a study about anything else but the bedroom, or intimacy with another. It is clear that your bias is clouding your logic, here: the data IN THE FIRST PLACE, is not applicable to dating!
2. “racism exists and until ppl can admit to it and address it, it will continue to act on society in ways that we PRETEND are merely a result of choice.”
Again, it may be true that racism exists, and that racism may continue to affect society, but the study of racism has no place in the bedroom. This post and your response belong in a Politics forum, not a DATING forum.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you are the typical Black woman lamenting racism in an arena in which it has no place being discussed.
And I am the typical White male with plenty of Black friends, having lived in Oakland (Sobrante Park. right off Capistrano) and Tacoma (Hilltop, on 6th and Sprague), and I tell you now that despite my close friendships with my Black friends, I still am NOT attracted to Black females.
Does this make me racist? Does this mean I would deny a competent man or women of another race a job they deserved by merit of their character and ability? No. Does this mean that I would only let White people get into the club first, if I were a bouncer? No.
If I don’t want to kiss a Black woman, or I can’t see myself shoving my **** into a Black woman’s *****, does this make me racist?
Of course not, and to assert otherwise is to illustrate your starting bias and your ignorance of deeper issues.
It makes me laugh at how much people forget to gauge their observations in the scope of the situations in which they are made.
People forget to consider more factors than their own biases.
And, as a side note: I think you misspoke, here: “in ways that we PRETEND are merely a result of choice.”
Are you saying that racism is NOT a result of choice, then?
Let me break this down further:
You say…
“did any of you actually LOOK at the charts. in the numbers given, more women than men in a given racial group were NOT interested in interracial dating, across the board. white men had the greatest options, white women get the greatest response from men across the board, black women the least response across the board, asian women replied less to non-asian/non-white men who wrote them BUT got greater responses FROM black men who THEY wrote.”
1. If this is the result of choice, this data is inappropriate given the arena in which it is introduced to!!
2. If this is NOT the result of choice, as noted in your assertion, then… is this a bad thing? I fail to see how this is a bad thing.
3. Whether it is a bad thing or not… this data is inappropriate given the arena in which it is introduced to!!
How dare you attempt to tell me who I should and should not let into the sanctity of my bedroom and into the privacy of my personal life. How impudent and repulsive your attempts to suggest I alter my sexual proclivities to accommodate your own, or others, political biases or ideologies.
Racism as a subject to be aware of belongs in the realm of Government and larger institutions like Employment, Insurance, and the like.
AGAIN, OKCUPID:
YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES FOR INTRODUCING RACE AND RACISM INTO THE ARENA OF THE BEDROOM, AND ALLOWING THIS TOPIC TO STICK.
Could you make it clearer that this is data for USA only
?
It might correlate with data for the world, but it isn’t necessarily so.
(In some parts of the world is more to one side, in some it’s more to the other.)
Written like this, it looks like this illustrates the world, and it doesn’t – it’s just and illustration of one part of it, one part with a history specific for that part of the world, culture specific for that part of the world, sentiments specific for that part of the world.
(Yes, I know you did say that it was USA data
, but it’s in the middle of the text, easy to overlook.)
I’ll hop on this runaway, neverending train for a moment.
There are SO many factors that go into this kind of research. There are statistics for interracial couples based on dating, relationships, marriages less than 5 years, more than 5 years, etc. In each of those sets, the racial makeup is much, much different.
From my experiences with online dating, this is what I’ve encountered (I’ve used it long enough to see these trends gain consistency):
- Asian women seldom respond to black guys, but LOVE the white ones. In fact, most of the women who were vocal about their racial preferences were Asian and were exclusively biased to white men.
- In real life, I’ve seen even horribly unattractive white men get somehow GOOD looking Asian women…that don’t speak English. Gravy train, anyone?
- Most of the profiles belonging to black women on these sites had one or more of the following:
* Massive amounts of ghetto bullshit
* One or more children (18 – 25 years old)
* Pictures of their sexy selves in scantily clad clothing, followed by barely anything
* Horribly off-putting titles.
These are the reasons why I think most black women get no play online (at least not from white men).
- Most of the profiles belonging to black women who are actually smart and intelligent get responses and, subsequently, match better with white men. (Experiential note: the two black women I’ve dated had strong biases for white men. I was kind of an exception to this in both cases.)
- Black men are usually much more sexually charged, and when compounded with their minority presence (in comparison to white folk), gives off an impression that they go after practically anything. They usually tend to send the most messages as well. (Almost all of the women I’ve dated from online dating have told me of these messages…most of them came from uneducated black men.)
- Many, if not most, of the profiles belonging to black men suffer from the same problems as that of black women. That’s why they barely get play from white women, since most of them are somewhat intelligent and wouldn’t even know where to begin handling that.
- White women tend to like white guys, but make exceptions for EDUCATED and INTELLIGENT black men.
- I hardly see Indian women on these sites, and they are usually very, very, VERY conservative and racially biased in real life. (This is because dating is very strict in Indian households; many Indian women have their husbands chosen for them.)
Honestly, men that are good with women don’t have as many issues with race because women are women, regardless of the skin they’re in. On the other hand, women have men practically throwing themselves at them and can afford to be choosy.
By the way, that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the trends I’ve seen in real-life that correlate strongly with these observations…I bet books upon books can be written on this, and I’m sure some universities offer classes on it.
On a final note, as a Black man (who’s really Dominican-American) who had a strong bias for Asian women, it gets annoying fast seeing most Asian women with white guys and not really having much of a chance against them. But one just gets used to it…and continues going for them anyway!
Hi,
Super interesting article, actually subscribed to this blog! =)
I’m a member on OKC but it would be nice to some race/gender/location stats about the members on OKC. White females living in the US vs white females in Asia might probably think and react differently.
Stats like that would help understand posts like this one better.
Thanks so much
Gideon
Hi Christian, thank you for the insightful information. Could you provide analysis of women response rate by men’s income? I, and people of my group, will greatly appreciate it.
I am White and I won’t date black men, ever. I won’t date mexicans, or asians, or indians. I will only date White men. I find nothing about any other race attractive. Nothing. No one has the right or place to tell me I must do any different. We’re talking about forming intimate relationships here, that is one area where “racism” is irrelevant. Who the hell does anyone think they are to tell me or anyone else who they have to date? Seriously, what the he11. Shove it. Shove it hard.
Brian wrote: “I must disagree frankly very strongly with the use of the word racism in this post. What if you say had a weakness for red heads, there is only one “race” that has red-heads in any significant numbers. It does not make you racist to have preferences for looks. ”
I agree with Brian and want to add that I don’t understand why “Hispanic” (which is a CULTURAL group) continues to be used in RACE DISCUSSIONS. Hispanic is NOT A RACE and should not be a part of racial studies.
Spanish speakers are NOT RACIALLY HOMOGENEOUS.
Mrcrassic, I’m also a Black male and have noticed the race problem with online dating (though it’s mitigated when meeting women in person).
What really frustrates me is that I’ll thoroughly read a profile, write a fully unique witty/slightly playful/funny, yet concise email and not even get a profile view. No reply? I understand. But you don’t even want to see my profile?
May I also add that I’m tallish, generally considered attractive and do not have any “ghetto” on my profile (top 20 university educated, 6 figure income, law school, etc etc). feel free to look it up: urbane_explorer
The funny part of it is that many of these women would clamor to exchange banter/numbers/whatever else with me in real life situations where they could instantly see that I’m not a stereotype. Oh well. Maybe online dating simply isn’t for black men. Yet.
Or, one could view this from the opposite perspective. Black men are only about half as likely to get a reply from most women as white males. Is it fair? No. So what? Just try twice as hard. You should already be used to that, I know I am.
Well, this is a little painful to look at, but I could tell you first hand that it makes a lot of sense, it may not be fair to call it raceism, but it’s something. I recently got a reply from someone who thought I was fantastic, but “Looks for skinny little white girls” Kinda fucked my day up.