Anonymous asked: You've dated white men and you've dated Asian men. Would you ever consider dating Latino or African-American men (assuming that you haven't already)?

Already have, though nothing serious has come out of those non-lationships (but then again, I’ve only had two-and-a-half long-term romances, and yes, I’m counting high school). But even if I haven’t, of course I would consider dating someone who wasn’t white or Asian. It’s not like having dark skin is a character flaw.

I’ve made the interesting observation that some of the most frequently asked reader questions I receive on The Chicktionary concern interracial dating. Roughly speaking, there are two groups of “askers”: girls who want to know about my personal experience with such relationships and guys who want to know how to effectively hit on Asian chicks. (I jest, but seriously, I can’t speak for all Asian women, so don’t submit questions like that.) It seems like there’s a lot of interest in this topic, but my totally non-expert opinion on the matter is rather simple.

I think racial preferences are completely senseless. Of course, certain factors (like the demographics of your college, for example) might make it more likely that you date a certain type of person, but controlling for that, race should never be a reason to not date someone. Given my extensive and sometimes cringe-worthy dating experiences, I can tell you that there are often bigger dealbreakers than the color of someone’s skin.

Usually, someone with a racial preference will cite an explanation like “physical attraction”, but I think this is mostly nonsense. Why? Because unless you have incredibly stringent and unreasonable criteria for potential partners, race alone is not going to make someone unattractive to you. Most of us are at least moderately shallow (which I wholeheartedly accept) and might like certain physical attributes, such as height or build, but when people say things like, “I’m never attracted to Black guys”, my alarm bells go off, and I think, “You’ve never ever seen an attractive Black guy? Like not even in a rap video?” Sorry, but I don’t buy that. You’re probably not trying hard enough and clearly have not experienced the magic of D’Angelo asking you “How Does It Feel?”.

And on the flipside, when someone says something like, “I’m only attracted to Asian women”, I’m equally skeptical, because are you seriously telling me that you can only be happy with a slanty-eyed, black-haired partner? Obviously not. And given that there are so few of us slanty-eyed, black-haired gals running around, it is not probable that you “accidentally” wound up dating five in a row.

So why is it then that so many people profess or exhibit some sort of racial bias in their partner choice? Here are a few basic theories:

• the demographic make-up of their surroundings (if you go to a school that’s all-white, you’ll likely date a white person)
• the desire for familiarity (as one of my Asian readers wrote, “it’s important to me that my guy and I share family backgrounds and life experiences”)
• socially constructed ideas that fetishize one type of race and/or body (i.e. yellow fever and jungle fever)

All of this said, many people have a preference (confessed or not) when it comes to race, and these people include Ivy Leaguers, my blog readers, and my mother. So while I remain slightly judge-y, I am also curious and apparently, so are the people reading this. If you care to share, please enlighten us in the comments.

More burning questions? Ask them here.

Related posts on race and dating:
Does Lena Chen Date Asians? (The Chicktionary)
Is Sharing Family Background and Life Experiences Essential To A Successful Relationship? (The Chicktionary)
Checking Your “Type” At The Door (College Candy)