Scott Roberts (@scottjsroberts), former news presenter on Gaydar Radio and editor of Pink News, looks at how sexual racism affects the gay community today.
“No Blacks and no Asians please”. Let me ask you, where have we gone to read such an offensive statement? Are we standing in front of a door sign outside a bed and breakfast or pub in a market town in 1950s Britain? Nope, it’s just a typical comment you can see after a quick trawl through the profiles of guys on several of our most popular gay dating platforms. Yes, welcome to sexual racism in the social -networking era. Racism and homophobia are two forms of prejudice that have been around since the start of modern civilisation, but these days they show up online with far greater prominence than you would expect to find in your average street.
The large number of celebrity cases in the news in the past year (Olympic diver Tom Daley received homophobic tweets during the London 2012 Games and the former footballer Stan Collymore successfully took a law student to court after he was bombarded with racial messages) illustrate the sharp end of malicious, online bigotry. Many people still have not grasped the fact that what you publish online is the same as saying it out loud in a street. This year’s high-profile Twitter ‘troll’ prosecutions may have been a wake-up call for some of the ignorant and also to parts of the establishment.
However, sexual racism, encapsulated by the comments you read at the very beginning, where the author is not seeking to hurt a particular individual, is a more subtle form of stupidity. What does it tells us about our online gay culture if most of us instantly recognise the familiarity of the “no Blacks, no Asians” comment? Of course, everyone is entitled to their own sexual preferences. It would make for a pretty strange world if someone told me who I could and could not fancy – althought that does happen, all too often.
The main reason why I believe sexual racism is wrong is because it promotes the idea that ‘casual’ racism is acceptable. By writing “no Blacks, no Asians” on a profile, a person is basically announcing that they believe these two racial groups of people should be avoided sexually. It is their personal opinion, but when displayed in a public setting it constitutes prejudice, regardless of the context. Society has taken the view that displaying prejudice is wrong. However, the minute we start to compromise with ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ discrimination, the journey to a fully equal society travels in a skewed direction. Rejection is always a difficult thing to deal with, regardless of whether it is racially based or because you are 5ft 7.
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Hard to say if what this person says is correct or not.
You have plenty of guys who also say things like “no fems, or fats” and such–or they don’t want anyone “too old.”
As someone who is older—but heavy—it does get me when a guy my age or older—even if he is chunky himself—says he only wants someone far younger and skinny. I do find it kind of hurtful on both accounts of my age and body weight.
On the other hand–I guess that people do have “the right” to say things like “no blacks, asians” or whatever too.
For me–I have been with women and men who have been not only white, but black, asian, Indian, Hispanic and others–and I’d pretty much like to be with lovers who are pretty much everything under the sun if I could be so fortunate.
I have been rejected and prevented from seeing girlfriends in my younger days because I lived in the south and came from up north—and was Catholic when the girl and her family were white, protestant southerners—so yeah–it does hurt to get rejected for such things too—also had a Cuban girlfriend’s dad prohibit her from seeing me because I was “anglo.”
It does suck that people are like this–but sadly–it’s a fact of life that people like to exclude and disregard others just because of exterior things like ethnicity, religion, or what have you.
Oh yeah–got plenty of rejection because I am only 5’6″!!!
Great comments CuIn – let me say we all have to get over it. The people that apply rejection by race before viewing are the real losers.
Yet, the days of real 1950s/60s/70s racism are over. It is over so let’s get over it.
More subtlety I object to guys who do not wash and dare I say really honk and smell – does that mean I cannot exclude meeting them? I think not! Hygiene is paramount.
Ciao babes
It would be much better if people just mentioned what their preferences are instead of what they like to avoid. If I see someone saying no this, no that instead of being polite I just pass them by and think that they are ignorant. There are much better ways around this situation without being rude and insulting.
I agree in particular with the comments Junior made in Scott Roberts’s article, and with Mr. Roberts’s statements in general.
And like a308, I am inclined to “discriminate” based on hygiene, intelligence and personality (and a great pair of legs) rather than the color of a man’s skin. I have been very satisfied by a number of sexual partners of all races, and could only hope that more close-minded men would allow themselves that privilege.
However, one comment I would make to Scott Roberts would be to eliminate the word “sexual” from the phrase “sexual racism.” Racism is racism, pure and simple. If someone’s race is offensive to you sexually, then it holds that that person is generally offensive to you — that’s racism — nothing particularly sexual about it. I can’t imagine a situation where a person’s race wouldn’t matter platonically, but WOULD matter sexually — or vice versa. For those of a racist bent — no matter how subtle or “acceptable” to that person’s peers — racism isn’t parsed between clothes-on and clothes-off situations.
Sure, as Junior says, we all have our preferences. And that’s perfectly OK. But it’s not OK to publicly, hurtfully and ignorantly write off an entire group of people and justify doing so based on “preference.” Just as we have (hopefully) moved on from those days of personal ads that insisted: “No fats, femmes, trolls, chicken hawks or queers,” I hope we can add the long list of racially diverse physical and cultural orientations to that roster soon.
The real losers in this sitiuation are those guys who have closed their doors and minds to a wide variety of men of all ages, shapes, sizes and colors who are, in a word, awesome.
I read about a third of the article. These irritate me. Why do we have to censor ourselves? It’s socially acceptable to say no women or tops/bottoms only but the minute race comes up everyone blows an ass ring. Yes, there are kinder ways to phrase it: seeking_______,______,_______,______…… But I’m kinda over the fact that some have the mentality that if we’re gay/bi we must take what’s available. It does hurt reading an ad that says this age, weight, height, etc….BUT I never reply for one-I go for random encounters, and the play is generally very vanilla and even though I don’t look like Hugh Jackman, I’ve had plenty of guys that have enjoyed the the size of my cock…even if it’s just jacking and light sucking.
I’ve seen both sides of the fence. Yes, I have my preferences, but I tend to keep them to myself. But if and I’m looking where some action might be, if it says no_____, _____,_____, I respect it and move on.
I have a couple of nasty emails sending to me that I should be here and make them very sick to see me here. I normaly block their emails and ignore them because I make them feel very insecure, intimidated and jealous. Father used to teach us to walk away and let someone else fix the bully. He told us a story that he learned when he was in China: Long time ago in a hot summer in a village, there was a monk walk on the path to a market. A naughty boy climbs on a tree and sat on a branch over the path. The monk passed under boy. The boy peed on the monk so the monk called him down and gave him a ooin money and the monk told the boy “Son, I am a monk and I do not have much money to give to you. You know if you see a man who wears nice long sparkling long dress and gold with a nice crown, He will have more money to give to you so you enjoy it.” So the boy giggled and took off. The next day, the boy came back at the same place and same tree and sat there waiting. Here comes a glory man walked by with some escorts him. The boy was very excited and happy so he peed on the a glory man. The glory man happened to be a prince to take a walk in a hot summer day. His escorts took to boy down and beat the shit out of him. The boy has a bloody nose and noone has never seen him again since”