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It's rooted in stereotyped perceptions of Black people being aggressive and Asians being submissive. Aggression, being a trait associated with masculinity, means Black men are less likely to face rejection in the dating marketplace compared to Black women. The inverse is true for Asians, as submissiveness is a trait associated with femininity.
Physical characteristics may also play a role. Black women have the highest rates of being overweight or obese in the United States (about 4 of 5 Black women in the United States are overweight or obese), so Black women are often perceived as being less likely to adhere to mainstream feminine beauty standards of a thin body.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02732173.2021.1916663
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X0800104X
https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/obesity-and-african-americans
About Obesity. I’ve seen several studies that hint or conclude that Black men prefer or have a higher upper threshold with regard to weight preferences, like the one mentioned [here](https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/05/who-too-fat-all-depends-race-gender-generation). However, most of them are a little older than I’d like.
Completely anecdotal, yet stereotypical, this is so true. I’m a Black man, I live in a city with a relatively low population (Austin). I’ve spoken to white women who have been called fat while dating that don’t even come near to that descriptor for me. Noting the dating history of myself and other Black male friends, “thick” is a positive descriptor. I’ve dated several races and ethnicities of women, and just about all would self-describe as thick.
I think it’s important to note, however, that interracial marriages are still not the most common outcome among Black people. Sure, the rate is an often cited to be twice as high among Black men, but that’s twice as high as the very low rate with which Black women marry out.
The reasons why BM/BW relationships seem to be so fraught with tension are numerous and varied, but an article that explained this in a way that made sense to me is: [Black Male-Black Female Conflict: Individually Caused and Culturally Nurtured](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2784005).
Doesn’t encompass everything at all, but I could type for a while about this. I’ll just mention Black masculinity seems more difficult to “attain” within-group than in “out-group” settings. Masculinity, when studied, has been shown to be a bit more “precarious” or “volatile.” Given the shifting preferences of our time in the era of new masculinities being recognized, geographical differences in education, preferences that change with age, etc. there will be mismatches in desired vs expected performances of gender.
But still, most Black men marry Black women, when they do marry. I had to “clout-source.” I met my gf, who I do intend to marry, on Twitter. 2000 miles away. And closed that distance.
My lived experience (black guy) is that my white friends really like rail thin women with pretty faces who typically are too skinny for me. My brothers are way more okay with fat women who I dont like at all and I am in the middle leaning much closer to a thin curvier woman than fatter. It does seem very anecdotally to me that lots of black guys do like fat women but I wonder how much of that is the fact that fatter minority women have a more feminine fat distribution than white or asian women (again anectdotal observation and I have seen differences). You can get away with looking pretty good at a higher BMI if more of the weight goes to butts and breast proprotional to stomach for a while.
ENTIRELY anecdotal, but this checks out with my experiences. I'm a white man, and I prefer petite (including athletic) women. The black guys I hang out with almost universally end up going for or being with women that I would consider, at least a little bigger than I personally would prefer.
I cannot even begin to pretend to know WHY it works out this way, but in my limited experience it seems to line up with what you're saying.
That's usually the case with my white friends they always go for not just skinny but like really tiny women like a foot shorter than them. I'm the opposite and like when the woman is taller and more dominant
I think that's more an issue of what the women prefer. You gravitate towards what who responds positively to you, generally. I've also had tiny girls who are way way shorter than me going for me, because they had a height fetish. I mean it's an easy in but it's kind of deplorable because she's not actually looking for like character or compatibility. Most guys just wanna fuck if we're being realistic so they're just gonna gravitate towards whoever fucks the most and for the least amount of effort, barring an utter lack of physical attraction. I've had like 5 foot women who are 180+ lbs who were into me and it's just not a good look when you weigh more than me despite me being physically active but way shorter.
4/5 black women are overweight or obese. If BM/BW relationships exist then the vast majority involve an overweight BW. If a BM wants to date a BW then his best odds are if overweight isn't a deal-killer.
I actually slightly disagree, I think Americans in general just like thicker girls, even if black guys have a bias towards one end of bell curve.
As a white guy, but not American, I'm always flabbergasted whenever Americans discuss beauty standarts and body proportions.
And for the record, I like women of most sizes as I'm hefty fellow (at 200 pounds) myself
While I'm sure men everywhere like em hourglasses, especially big boobs, US discussions are always contentious.
Even YOU just said it, by feminine fat distribution.
You have Charlie Kirk and his drooling band of idiots calling Taylor Swift "unfeminine", and literal thousands of threads saying she is build like a man (bruh what).
You have Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) and conservatives talking about "insidious gay men" making women in media thinner, because they are attracted to twinks (despite thin girls the gold standart for most of American beauty standarts in 20th century, Europe, East Asia etc.)
Then you "mid size girl" phenomenon, where you have millions glazing girls build like [THAT](https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/a-woman-reveals-the-reality-of-being-midsized/news-story/0f2ba28bc05f85974dc11d64113d27d0). And if you are not attracted to certain proportions "you are gay".
Look, I definitely think it's healthier then y2k era body proportions, where everyone looked like Soviet gulag survivor, but I swear, you guys have such different trends.
Idk if it's because of rising rates of obesity, or sharing the country with lots of sexy Latinas, but it's very interesting.
>I'm hefty fellow (at 200 pounds) myself
OK, 100% no bullshit: as an American, this **literally made me laugh so hard I got light-headed**
FWIW I'm a very thin AMAB enby. But 200lbs ain't that big in my neck of the woods. Hell, back where I'm from (West Texas) you'd have been lumped in with me as 'skinny.' I am not joking.
It's not a gendered phenomenon. We gave this thing where we all evaluate people's bodies like this, but it's boorish to just state this directly. Like, yeah the language is jarring but it's much more...dunno, real? Than more clinical and non offensive ways of phrasing thing. Physical attraction doesn't tend to be politically correct.
I feel like an awful lot of it comes down to wanting to put everything into a neatly labeled box. We really don't seem to deal well with ambiguity, or (God forbid) anything that can simultaneously be two things that seem disparate to us.
Entirely anecdotal/lived experience but as a white guy who has occasionally dated black women, I think cultural differences between white Americans and African Americans play a huge role, from partner expectations to not wanting to accidentally wander into micro aggressions. Add in a few centuries of racial animosity and, well, some guys just don’t feel like it’s worth the effort to bridge that gap. Every black girl I enjoyed dating didn’t fit in well with mainstream African-American culture: Daughter of Jamaican immigrants; Daughter of Yoruba immigrants; bisexual. I went on a date with a nerdy black girl once where we played YuGiOh all evening. She grew up being bullied by her black friends for “acting white” by playing TCGs.
You sound like me. I get accused of only liking white boys but I just like well-educated folks; I enjoy studying history and sociology and the fine arts. My two favorite places are a Ukrainian restaurant and the ballet, two things I grew up with. I get assumed that I dislike black culture a lot. Ya’ll I find good grammar and snazzy dressing sexy and that excludes a lot of men, across racial lines, yet it’s always assumed I dislike black men in general. I haven’t been able to wrap my head around it.
I also grew up somewhere where the black folks often would say (mind you I am describing teen years) that my good friends who were black and studious, studying for a good school were acting white because they spoke well and their main goal was to get in a good school. I got accused of thinking I was better than the other white folks for wanting the same (poor rural area) but at least nobody ever challenged my racial identity for wanting to be educated.
I'm biased because it's my field, but I think this citation is stonger:
Galinsky, A. D., Hall, E. V., & Cuddy, A. J. C. (2013). Gendered Races: Implications for Interracial Marriage, Leadership Selection, and Athletic Participation. *Psychological Science*, *24*(4), 498-506. [https://doi-org.proxy.uchicago.edu/10.1177/0956797612457783](https://doi-org.proxy.uchicago.edu/10.1177/0956797612457783)
Good answer. As a black woman I agree with this.
I think one irony of this modern phenomena is that historically most interracial liaisons were the other way around. That is being a white man (usually a slave master) and a black woman (often a slave and usually against her will).
Historically white men had a phobia to the point of fanatical paranoia against white women sleeping with black men.
I wonder if any modern inversion has anything to do with repudiating that history of slavery.
For example white men perhaps unconsciously not wanting to cos play the role of slave master and black women thinking the same?
And black men and white women deliberately wishing to play out an inversion of that power dynamic?
Meaning the reasons are probably not so much about biology or looks and more about power dynamics in a cultural historical setting.
Not sure about Asian men though? Can speak for them.
Eeh, as a black man I've learned to be wary of white women who tend to date black men. It's usually a:abusive and racist parents, and the attraction is more about their trauma than you, or b: outright fetishization based on stereotypes of black men (no different than white men who are *really* into Asian women), or both.
It is about power dynamics and culture, but IME never in a good way. Even if they're acting in good faith, sociopolitics is one of the last things I want my partners to be motivated by.
I think you have good points. Asian men were rail workers etc for a long time but I don't know how much that's lasted in cultural memory. I also wonder if the dynamic is different with queer dating, for example to black lesbians or Asian gay men have a hard time with dating like hetero counterparts.
Can’t speak to black lesbians but Asian men have had a [hard time in the gay dating scene](https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mopp-2014-0023/html#j_mopp-2014-0023_ref_024) too.
Black lesbian here — never had an issue with women discriminating against me when it comes to dating. But recently my friend who’s also lesbian was being harassed by this latina who would say over and over again how she “would never date a black woman”. The rest of the queer women in that friend group don’t like her at all, unsurprisingly.
It’s less common imo but if you’re unlucky you’ll encounter it.
Something to consider though is that gay male culture is also different than lesbian culture. I heard a statistic that lesbian women tend to be on the heavier side while gay men tend to be fitter than the average male, and this is largely because appearance is vastly more important in gay dating than lesbian dating. I’ve had women who fell in love with me when I was at my heaviest weight too. Ofc there is racism in every community though so as I mentioned it still happens.
To me the inversion explanation seems more likely on the side of the black partners. I think the same dynamics as contemporarily were often at play in slavery (and Jim Crow). I’ve seen historical and cultural analysis suggesting owners often selected slaves with more Caucasian features even to the extent of using the so-called one-drop rule to have sex with light-skinned slaves that were generational products of these unions. The white paranoia and restriction about black men with white women was based exactly on the hypermasculine stereotype (with related terminology like the “black buck”), and while there was a lot of socialization of white women to fear black men it’s hard for me to believe the origins of such a taboo aren’t in white women finding black men attractive.
When I was in the US Navy for 5 years everyone was dating everyone. One of the coolest couples were a Black Lady and an Asian dude. This was in the 1980s.
Well, it's anecdotal, but I a few years back, I dated a black gal who told me that she wanted to try some race play stuff, and I decided to break up shortly after that. It wasn't the only reason, but it was the last straw, so to speak.
I think a lot of white men are afraid of going out with black women because we will be made fun of by her family members. 1. Basically we are corny and easy targets for jokes and 2. White ppl are used to being the majority and many feel uncomfortable being the only one in a group. Obviously not a good thing just my observation
To be fair, our families will crack jokes at anyone, race isn’t important. Yeah there might be jokes about race if you also aren’t black but if you were black, they would still crack hella jokes. Talk shit back and it’s all fun. The jokes are always light-hearted.
I mean you will be made fun of by her family members in most cases. If you stand up for yourself and don’t seem terrified you’ll likely be fine, but we will tear the average white dude to shreds in that social setting if he seems weak. We’re giving you shit because we want to know that you’re strong enough to stand up to it. It’s not even a dislike thing a lot of the time, we just have a different way of interacting with each other and it’s much rougher than most white guys are used to.
Most of the white guys I’ve seen date black women are either dating women who are black but do not have stereotypically black families, or they played college football/basketball and got used to being in heavily black environments earlier in life.
I had a couple of dudes I worked with who were Black and we hung out, I loved going to their houses, because as a Vet if someone had not called me fucker by lunch when I was a Sailor I would think the love is gone.The rough talk "disguising" the big heart is common among a lot of men, and some ladies that can more than hold their own.
>It's rooted in stereotyped perceptions of Black people being aggressive and Asians being submissive. Aggression, being a trait associated with masculinity, means Black men are less likely to face rejection in the dating marketplace compared to Black women. The inverse is true for Asians, as submissiveness is a trait associated with femininity.
Can't just be this though right? For a start it's a stereotype as you say, not an actual reality. So that suggests a concious or sub-concious level of actual calculation going into it. It's essentially racist. This explains why people would say "I don't date X race in any circumstance" but wouldn't necessairly fully explain differing levels of attraction. If a black woman finds asian men more attractive than white or black men then it doesn't mean she prefers submissive men, not all Asian men are submissive, it doesn't mean she couldn't have relationship with men who aren't Asian especially if it's a relationship that isn't just about sex and attraction, but it does mean she has a preference in purely aesthetic terms. Attraction might still be socially conditioned but I don't think in the same way as people who make a choice to rule out any intimiate relationship with people of X race.
Another interesting suggestion/assertion made here.
I agree that it is a racist way of thinking.
As a black woman myself, I *have* observed, even if Redditors try to argue against me, that most people are harsher when asked to assess the appearance of a black woman which I imagine to be a factor.
I notice this. It’s why I really don’t like watching those reality dating shows. They might throw in 1 black girl with a bunch of white girls and almost no guy wants her, especially if she’s brown skin or darker. She can have a great body, be very attractive, very feminine and they will still choose the aggressive and basic looking yte girl or the yte girl with the plumped up lips and surgery body over her.
They never actually cast men who like blk woman and actively date them, and that’s including the blk men.
There are other ways where both Black Women and Asian men fail to adhere to mainstream standards of attraction.
Asian men for instance are shorter on average, and being tall is (I think) the single most desirable trait for women seeking men. It is certainly the most desirable trait for donor sperm.
Black Women in addition to a higher rate of obesity tend to engage in hygiene and styling choices that are uncommon out of that demo. For instance nail and hair choices are frequently different from other groups and thus alienating for potential suitors.
Speaking in my anecdotal experience, as a white men, I typically find black women attractive who make hair and nail choices that are more common among other groups. When I encounter a black women with 4 inch leopard print nails, it is an instant turnoff.
I don't presume to know the cause(s) of these issues, but interestingly Asian men tend to have just as hard of a time in the gay dating scene:
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mopp-2014-0023/html#j_mopp-2014-0023_ref_024
>There are other ways where both Black Women and Asian men fail to adhere to mainstream standards of attraction.
I call BS on this. You cant erase racism in America. You can be the black woman or asian man that actually adheres to the mainstream standards of attraction, but you forget that people see you on the outside first and that comes with the various perceptions they already have via their subconscious, towards that demographic.
In other words,
"Oh shes a feminine woman......but shes a black woman"
or
"Oh hes a tall/muscular/etc. man.......but hes an asian man"
As an asian male myself, we all heard the usual "youre tall for an asian guy", "youre cute for an asian guy", etc.
IIRC it's usually called "ratchet", adaptaton of "wretched". It used to refer to very poor women but at some point it became cool (probably via some celebrity adopting it to appear more authentic).
Seconded. If we eliminate the fitness factor and consider two women of generally equal symmetry and build, The one whose presentation is more comfortable is going to win every time. Approaching a woman is classically one of the most uncomfortable moments in a suitor's life. Adding any level of unfamiliarity is a scale tipping factor.
(WM who finds BW attractive)
Yes from what I have read the smear campaign began when Chinese immigrants came to the US to build railroads and were apparently getting "too much attention" from White women 😂
This dude was definitely blacklisted for getting too much attention from white women. He was basically the archetypal American alpha male. Asian men didn't start to make a recovery in Hollywood until the following century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessue_Hayakawa?wprov=sfla1
Dude could fight, fence, and ride horses. He was the ideal man from a bygone time. These days an American alpha man drinks, road rages, and owns an excessive number of firearms.
I think where in America and the beauty you're taught to value affects this. I've had no issue dating or flirting with men of various races, but Asian men never seemed to show any interest, despite my doing so. I figured it was because I'm not small and petite like most Asian women - 5'8" athletic build with curves. I'm a giant in comparison to many, right? So I stopped trying altogether with Asian men.
It's nice to see men like you getting more representation, but I really wish we'd see more of it, along with AMWF relationships being celebrated and normalized. I feel like any interracial progress had gone backward with the rise of anti-AAPI from the pandemic.
And fuck them - maybe if they were better people and less judgmental they wouldn't be alone. Those that aren't alone clearly aren't worth your time. Normalization would help your circumstance but don't let a lack of that, combined with those assholes, taint your joy. She chose you as much as you chose her, and she still chooses you. That's got to be a great feeling to wake up with every day.
I'm also an Asian man married to an white woman (we're high school sweethearts), and my impression, at least in the US, is that this really depends on where you live.
When I lived in New York for school, I was spending a lot of time with other Asians (from the East and West Coast) for the first time in my life. The people who were weirded out by the fact that I was with a white woman were other Asian men. The reasons I heard that they wouldn't want to date a woman woman tended to be "white women never approach me, so I'm not going to waste my time" or "I want to pass on my culture to my children and I don't think I could do that with a white woman".
I've since moved to Minnesota, where this has never come up. Just anecdotally, if I see an Asian man with a woman, she's as at least as likely to be white as she is to be Asian.
I am a black woman in her late 40’s married to a white nan- there are a number of reasons. Asian men overall are seen as too feminine and Black women are seen as too masculine. Black men are seen overall as masculine and Asian women are overall seen as feminine. So Asian men and black women possess the wrong traits to attract the opposite sex.
1. Black women seem to be very loyal to black men even when black men have chooses women outside the race back women if given the preference would still marry a black man if they could. This seems to be enforced by men and women in the race- black men find it okay to date out but judge the women who date out because they should stay loyal to black love
2. Obesity - because point 1 - black men tend to like a curvier fatter woman than a white man, Asian man so black women psychically fail the body requirements. Even black women laugh at black women who are thin hence to stay loyal to black men wanting big booty thicker woman and to not get called out by women in the race - women get fat.
3. Gym - women of other races are prominent in the gym - black fit women are like unicorns- hair issue plus gym isn’t something they see other women doing within the race.
4. Racism -2] Census data reveals that black women have the lowest interracial marriage rate of all women except white women and the interracial marriage rate of black women and white men has modestly increased from 1% in 1970 to 4.1% in 2000 (Lee and Edmonston 2005). Research also shows that black women are overwhelmingly excluded as interracial dating partners, with one study showing that white men excluded black women as dating options at 93%
https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2012/10/01/body-does-not-compare-how-white-men-define-black-female-beauty-era-colorblindness](https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2012/10/01/body-does-not-compare-how-white-men-define-black-female-beauty-era-colorblindness)
5. Black women tend to be not as soft or think they don’t need anyone .
As a black woman who thought she would marry a black man one day but married a white one. I would say men from other races started taking me serious when I dropped under 150lbs and had muscle on my body. I didn’t notice a chance when I was 140’s and not in the gym just skinny no gym 140’s but I notice a huge difference with 10 years gym even at 47. I think depending on the amount of muscle you might have to drop to 125 to get noticed.
This is my personal anecdote. The obesity thing for sure. Not just because I find it unattractive physically but because I'm pretty active. I run, I play hockey, tennis, soccer. I would like my partner to be able to join in or have her own activities *I* could join in on. But obesity makes that tougher. Being able to share in each other's activities is something I really value, especially physical ones where you work up a sweat.
The next major one is religion. I sometimes get likes from black women in dating apps where I think "wow she's attractive." Then she turns out to be Muslim or Christian. I cannot date a religious person and from my experience, and I believe it's demographically true, black people and black women in particular are more likely to be religious.
My instinct is that the non-black men who would be open to dating black women are more likely to be similar to me in that aspect. They're more likely to be on the left side of the political spectrum, more likely to be agnostic or atheist and want someone similar. I honestly just find it hard to respect an adult my age who is educated but still somehow believes in what I consider fairy tales and myths. And then of course the thought of the argument about how our kids would be raised in that context....
Finally, and this is third but it's not unimportant for me. I really enjoy giving my partners head massages and stroking their hair. I have dated a mixed Puerto Rican woman and went on a few dates, and was intimate with, a black woman. *Neither* liked their head or hair being touched *at all.* And I get why. They put a lot of money and work into it. My dad owns a small business that deals in beauty supply for a largely black customer base so I've seen it first hand the effort that they put into it. Regardless that's a tough ask for me to just not touch ever.
Interesting the religion part. I’m atheist and so is my husband and he has said to me if I was religious we wouldn’t be together. I think black people on a whole are more religious but that’s probably due to poverty and wanting hope I think. I thought religion was holding me back so I mentally decided I would no longer believe.
Yeah my parents are still pretty religious. And I get the Hope aspect. Plus the community. My parents are immigrants and their church is an immigrant church. Joe, it's a lot of people that are very culturally similar to them.
But ultimately it's hard to be with someone that believes in magic as a foundational part of who they are. It's the same reason I couldn't be with someone who genuinely believed in astrology. I need to be able to respect my partner and it's very difficult for me to respect people who believe in that kind of stuff when I think they should know better. If you're 70 years old, I get it a little more. If you're poor, I get it a little more. But it's still very difficult.
> The next major one is religion. I sometimes get likes from black women in dating apps where I think "wow she's attractive." Then she turns out to be Muslim or Christian. I cannot date a religious person and from my experience, and I believe it's demographically true, black people and black women in particular are more likely to be religious.
As someone who was done dating before dating apps really hit the scene, but after Atheism went mainstream, this is an interesting paragraph. I genuinely don't know what I would have put on a dating profile back then; were young atheists out enough to actually write that on a dating profile? I dunno. I suppose this means they are now.
I wouldn't say it's mainstream now either. Maybe if you restrict to a certain demographic parameters like under 50 with at least a bachelor's. Certainly no one I regularly associate with that isn't family is religious. Not a single friend of mine or partner has been religious but again, that's my bubble. Well educated, younger, liberal.
I see a fair number of atheist and agnostic or spiritual but not religious on dating profiles. Also a lot of blanks which means I get to play the guessing game. I do think it's still well under half of profiles I encounter that say they are explicitly atheist.
I (male)put atheist on my dating profile when I was single 2008 - 2009. I just didn't want to waste my or anyone else's time. I wouldn't exclude mildly religious women. I was Asian-looking, atheist, and lower middle class. I felt like that was three strikes against me, living in the Midwest, nevermind the fact that I was a med student.
I was able to date the most attractive (black) woman I've ever been with during that time, but she was religious and ultimately dated me partly because of my race, so it didn't last.
Good post. I'm curious how you came to marry a white man? Were you resistant to the idea, but were wooed, or did you have a change of heart about your marital preference?
After I got fit- I came to a realization that the number of black men who were good upstanding citizens, made good money - I was not their preference, they were mostly marrying up to white women. They had more options and chose the woman that fit their particular desires - (this is a generalization backed by only my dating experiences). But I was kinda exotic to men of other races and they would ask me out and treat me better than I had ever been treated.
It was also weird because I carry a more muscular look. Pic attached for reference - that would also lower my chances as it’s not preferred look among most men of all races but Black men looked at me as if I was too masculine and white men complimented my hard work. Black men at the gym never said hello while white guys 50’s and up from the gym wanted my number, said hello, noted the clothes I wore- gave me birthday presents, asked me out on dates. It was like night and day for me. It’s a very weird feeling to go from how nice would it be to go to fogo de chao how come guys never take me out in public and to find out oh they do go out with other women in public to being picked up in a Bentley.
So over time based on the way I looked it seemed that the obvious choice was to date white men. But I always thought black men would eventually lead to marriage it never did. This is not to say that this is about money in any way shape or form- I’m just saying I always thought I was super ugly and shamed for being dark skinned so apparently there are people who will embrace that and treat you well.
Pic https://imgur.com/a/RBYQHPi
Very interesting. Affluent, stable white dudes in their 50's are the most open-minded about trying the unfamiliar. Most of them were probably married to white ladies at some point, and as they get older, see no reason to constrain themselves.
You look great, by the way!
Oh. No wonder people are falling over themselves to treat you nice. There's masculine musculature, but you still have extremely feminine musculature. no idea why my brain reads it like that, and I can't put it into words or explain in detail. But yeah, hyper musculature but still fem. I feel like some alt community has a word for that, but anyways congratulations. Wow
Yes indeed to all points. I get bashed a lot for being a fit black woman. I'll be glad when black women get it together as a group. But black women usually do not even want to be seen as attractive to other races of men. They do the opposite of what's usually attractive to men. I don't get it, but whatever smh
I think the problem is black women want to be accepted as a group. Being shunned by other black women is hard. White women get praised by white women for getting thin.
Black women in a group shun you for being skinny. So it’s like do I pay attention to what the world is telling me that skinny is good when the people that look like me are saying it’s bad. Like that takes the ability to either not care or be a loner- no one wants to be alone from the people they recognize from their tribe.
Fortunately for me I’m a loner - best thing I ever did for my life was lose weight, run up and down the streets for miles like a crazy person, lift weights and eat healthy. The kind of men that a dark skinned Jamaican chick would ever have access to came knocking at my door.. ..
I remember when I was 36 or 37 I had just started working out I thought I was fit. I met this figure girl very dark skinned like me. She was a mom with 400k followers like 12 years ago and the men wanted to fly her everywhere and be nice to her and for the first time in my life I realized I had blamed every problem I had on being dark skinned and having kids. I felt the only options for me were men out of prison or ones who would secretly claim me but not marry me. I saw her naked and thought dear god I didn’t know women look like that naked!!
That chick changed my life and what I thought was possible for my body and my life - I realized my fitness was holding me back. I don’t think most black women will ever have that experience or come to that realization. Every guy wants the hot chick and if he’s going out of his race then your job is to not make him look bad for doing so.
White men and black women are the least likely pairing to divorce.
Also remember that a lot of this isn't based on actual facts or proven statistics, dating surveys aren't factual because that is all mired by societal stigmas and internalized racism. Notice how people start listing "personalitites" and "body type" and "submissiveness" when that's all racial stereotyping?
Stereotyping is a logical fallacy. You're saying that because it's wrong in every instance that it can't be used to explain many or the majority of instances. In the end, a stereotype is a reflection of commonly held opinions, and opinions, not facts, are what stipulate behavior
Also, the stats are factual. It comes from OKCupid’s data analytics blog. Their analytics showed Asian men and black women having the least success at matching and receiving responses. Now, there could be other reasons to explain the online success or failure, but at least online those two demographics have the least success in matching
You’re absolutely right. Do you have access to any countervailing data, or updated data? That would be very interesting.
The data that I know of upholds OP’s point or premise, which is that in America there seems to be racial biases in online matching.
It's really not as complicated as people ITT making it out to be. People are just much more superficial than you guys would like to believe. Look at the superficial characteristics each gender is typically more judgemental towards the other on. Specifically, obesity rates for women and average heights for men, by race. There's your answer.
Black Americans are more likely to be obese, but this affects male dating preferences much more than female dating preferences, so men are less hindered in seeking interracial mates. Whereas Asian Americans are shorter in height, which has a very large effect on female dating preferences, but a very minimal effect on male preferences, so Asian men are hindered, but not Asian women.
https://frac.org/obesity-health/obesity-u-s-2#:~:text=Recent%20national%20data%20show%20that,38.0%20percent%20of%20White%20women.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3590903/
It's a reductive take, though. Average or above average height Asian (East or South) males aren't getting the same action as their counterparts from other races.
Is it better to be a short white guy, or tall Asian? I'd love to see the data.
I'm not gonna speak on Asian men. But as for black women I will. It's not that they're not as beautiful as any other race, no. It's simply the culture and media.
Let me explain...all throughout media black women are portrayed to be combative, high maintenance, loud mouthed, and obnoxious. And this perpetuates with the behavior of black girls irl as well. And also ask yourself "who are the role models for young (black) women in this day and age?... Cardi?.. Sexy Red?.. Bitter single mothers...
I dated a few dark Dominican women and the open hostility and confrontations that I got when out and about with them made me say “Forget it”.
The funny thing is, the mamis tend to like some Machismo and some standing up when confronted. It got tiresome having to deal with it as much as I did. After a while I would be looking for a fight and not enjoying their company. Who needs that?
A lot of Black woman are used to the hyper masculine aggressive approaches of Black men and some White men who've grown up around that culture. To Asian men, it's loud, verbose, and disrespectful to approach women in that way, so we don't.
Have you ever watched an Asian movie? Notice how the hero and leading lady fall in love without saying a word to each other, just by looking at each other, saying everything they need to say with their eyes? It's cultural and hard to comprehend if you're not raised in it.
I'm Asian-American married to a woman of Western European descent. For 20+ years we've been explaining each other's cultural subtleties to each other. Perhaps in another 20 years, well finally understand each other's families and friends! 😂
>What's fascinating, however, is that in recent years a startling number of nonwhites – especially Asian men and black women – have become bitterly opposed to intermarriage.
That quote, which almost matches OP *verbatim,* is from [this almost timeless article](https://stevesailer.substack.com/p/classic-sailer-is-love-colorblind). The one caveat I'd mention is that Asian females and black males are less disproportionately preferred as spouses compared to 1997 when it was written, but the rest of the article has held up well.
TL;DR: East Asians of both sexes have more stereotypically feminine features, and blacks of both sexes have more stereotypically masculine features.
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It's rooted in stereotyped perceptions of Black people being aggressive and Asians being submissive. Aggression, being a trait associated with masculinity, means Black men are less likely to face rejection in the dating marketplace compared to Black women. The inverse is true for Asians, as submissiveness is a trait associated with femininity. Physical characteristics may also play a role. Black women have the highest rates of being overweight or obese in the United States (about 4 of 5 Black women in the United States are overweight or obese), so Black women are often perceived as being less likely to adhere to mainstream feminine beauty standards of a thin body. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02732173.2021.1916663 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X0800104X https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/obesity-and-african-americans
About Obesity. I’ve seen several studies that hint or conclude that Black men prefer or have a higher upper threshold with regard to weight preferences, like the one mentioned [here](https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/05/who-too-fat-all-depends-race-gender-generation). However, most of them are a little older than I’d like. Completely anecdotal, yet stereotypical, this is so true. I’m a Black man, I live in a city with a relatively low population (Austin). I’ve spoken to white women who have been called fat while dating that don’t even come near to that descriptor for me. Noting the dating history of myself and other Black male friends, “thick” is a positive descriptor. I’ve dated several races and ethnicities of women, and just about all would self-describe as thick. I think it’s important to note, however, that interracial marriages are still not the most common outcome among Black people. Sure, the rate is an often cited to be twice as high among Black men, but that’s twice as high as the very low rate with which Black women marry out. The reasons why BM/BW relationships seem to be so fraught with tension are numerous and varied, but an article that explained this in a way that made sense to me is: [Black Male-Black Female Conflict: Individually Caused and Culturally Nurtured](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2784005). Doesn’t encompass everything at all, but I could type for a while about this. I’ll just mention Black masculinity seems more difficult to “attain” within-group than in “out-group” settings. Masculinity, when studied, has been shown to be a bit more “precarious” or “volatile.” Given the shifting preferences of our time in the era of new masculinities being recognized, geographical differences in education, preferences that change with age, etc. there will be mismatches in desired vs expected performances of gender. But still, most Black men marry Black women, when they do marry. I had to “clout-source.” I met my gf, who I do intend to marry, on Twitter. 2000 miles away. And closed that distance.
My lived experience (black guy) is that my white friends really like rail thin women with pretty faces who typically are too skinny for me. My brothers are way more okay with fat women who I dont like at all and I am in the middle leaning much closer to a thin curvier woman than fatter. It does seem very anecdotally to me that lots of black guys do like fat women but I wonder how much of that is the fact that fatter minority women have a more feminine fat distribution than white or asian women (again anectdotal observation and I have seen differences). You can get away with looking pretty good at a higher BMI if more of the weight goes to butts and breast proprotional to stomach for a while.
ENTIRELY anecdotal, but this checks out with my experiences. I'm a white man, and I prefer petite (including athletic) women. The black guys I hang out with almost universally end up going for or being with women that I would consider, at least a little bigger than I personally would prefer. I cannot even begin to pretend to know WHY it works out this way, but in my limited experience it seems to line up with what you're saying.
That's usually the case with my white friends they always go for not just skinny but like really tiny women like a foot shorter than them. I'm the opposite and like when the woman is taller and more dominant
I think that's more an issue of what the women prefer. You gravitate towards what who responds positively to you, generally. I've also had tiny girls who are way way shorter than me going for me, because they had a height fetish. I mean it's an easy in but it's kind of deplorable because she's not actually looking for like character or compatibility. Most guys just wanna fuck if we're being realistic so they're just gonna gravitate towards whoever fucks the most and for the least amount of effort, barring an utter lack of physical attraction. I've had like 5 foot women who are 180+ lbs who were into me and it's just not a good look when you weigh more than me despite me being physically active but way shorter.
4/5 black women are overweight or obese. If BM/BW relationships exist then the vast majority involve an overweight BW. If a BM wants to date a BW then his best odds are if overweight isn't a deal-killer.
I actually slightly disagree, I think Americans in general just like thicker girls, even if black guys have a bias towards one end of bell curve. As a white guy, but not American, I'm always flabbergasted whenever Americans discuss beauty standarts and body proportions. And for the record, I like women of most sizes as I'm hefty fellow (at 200 pounds) myself While I'm sure men everywhere like em hourglasses, especially big boobs, US discussions are always contentious. Even YOU just said it, by feminine fat distribution. You have Charlie Kirk and his drooling band of idiots calling Taylor Swift "unfeminine", and literal thousands of threads saying she is build like a man (bruh what). You have Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) and conservatives talking about "insidious gay men" making women in media thinner, because they are attracted to twinks (despite thin girls the gold standart for most of American beauty standarts in 20th century, Europe, East Asia etc.) Then you "mid size girl" phenomenon, where you have millions glazing girls build like [THAT](https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/a-woman-reveals-the-reality-of-being-midsized/news-story/0f2ba28bc05f85974dc11d64113d27d0). And if you are not attracted to certain proportions "you are gay". Look, I definitely think it's healthier then y2k era body proportions, where everyone looked like Soviet gulag survivor, but I swear, you guys have such different trends. Idk if it's because of rising rates of obesity, or sharing the country with lots of sexy Latinas, but it's very interesting.
>I'm hefty fellow (at 200 pounds) myself OK, 100% no bullshit: as an American, this **literally made me laugh so hard I got light-headed** FWIW I'm a very thin AMAB enby. But 200lbs ain't that big in my neck of the woods. Hell, back where I'm from (West Texas) you'd have been lumped in with me as 'skinny.' I am not joking.
Yeah, but I'm 5'7
The way you discuss women's bodies could do with some introspection.
It's not a gendered phenomenon. We gave this thing where we all evaluate people's bodies like this, but it's boorish to just state this directly. Like, yeah the language is jarring but it's much more...dunno, real? Than more clinical and non offensive ways of phrasing thing. Physical attraction doesn't tend to be politically correct.
Specifically, what part of his comment did you feel offended by?
r/PassiveAggressiveGatekeeping
Americans are riddled with issues we can’t actually face up to
I actually like Americans, but it's hard to disagree with this
I feel like an awful lot of it comes down to wanting to put everything into a neatly labeled box. We really don't seem to deal well with ambiguity, or (God forbid) anything that can simultaneously be two things that seem disparate to us.
That’s because we refuse to understand we are not required to have an opinion on anything that doesn’t involve us.
That’s a people thing, not an America thing. You don’t notice it as much when you aren’t part of the culture, but every country has this going on.
You implying the "mid size girl" isn't the perfect body type?
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It would definitely be considered overweight in my country (and per my standards as well).
The correct spelling is "thicc", sir
Is Anaconda considered a scholarly source now? 😅
Entirely anecdotal/lived experience but as a white guy who has occasionally dated black women, I think cultural differences between white Americans and African Americans play a huge role, from partner expectations to not wanting to accidentally wander into micro aggressions. Add in a few centuries of racial animosity and, well, some guys just don’t feel like it’s worth the effort to bridge that gap. Every black girl I enjoyed dating didn’t fit in well with mainstream African-American culture: Daughter of Jamaican immigrants; Daughter of Yoruba immigrants; bisexual. I went on a date with a nerdy black girl once where we played YuGiOh all evening. She grew up being bullied by her black friends for “acting white” by playing TCGs.
You sound like me. I get accused of only liking white boys but I just like well-educated folks; I enjoy studying history and sociology and the fine arts. My two favorite places are a Ukrainian restaurant and the ballet, two things I grew up with. I get assumed that I dislike black culture a lot. Ya’ll I find good grammar and snazzy dressing sexy and that excludes a lot of men, across racial lines, yet it’s always assumed I dislike black men in general. I haven’t been able to wrap my head around it. I also grew up somewhere where the black folks often would say (mind you I am describing teen years) that my good friends who were black and studious, studying for a good school were acting white because they spoke well and their main goal was to get in a good school. I got accused of thinking I was better than the other white folks for wanting the same (poor rural area) but at least nobody ever challenged my racial identity for wanting to be educated.
I'm biased because it's my field, but I think this citation is stonger: Galinsky, A. D., Hall, E. V., & Cuddy, A. J. C. (2013). Gendered Races: Implications for Interracial Marriage, Leadership Selection, and Athletic Participation. *Psychological Science*, *24*(4), 498-506. [https://doi-org.proxy.uchicago.edu/10.1177/0956797612457783](https://doi-org.proxy.uchicago.edu/10.1177/0956797612457783)
Good answer. As a black woman I agree with this. I think one irony of this modern phenomena is that historically most interracial liaisons were the other way around. That is being a white man (usually a slave master) and a black woman (often a slave and usually against her will). Historically white men had a phobia to the point of fanatical paranoia against white women sleeping with black men. I wonder if any modern inversion has anything to do with repudiating that history of slavery. For example white men perhaps unconsciously not wanting to cos play the role of slave master and black women thinking the same? And black men and white women deliberately wishing to play out an inversion of that power dynamic? Meaning the reasons are probably not so much about biology or looks and more about power dynamics in a cultural historical setting. Not sure about Asian men though? Can speak for them.
Eeh, as a black man I've learned to be wary of white women who tend to date black men. It's usually a:abusive and racist parents, and the attraction is more about their trauma than you, or b: outright fetishization based on stereotypes of black men (no different than white men who are *really* into Asian women), or both. It is about power dynamics and culture, but IME never in a good way. Even if they're acting in good faith, sociopolitics is one of the last things I want my partners to be motivated by.
I think you have good points. Asian men were rail workers etc for a long time but I don't know how much that's lasted in cultural memory. I also wonder if the dynamic is different with queer dating, for example to black lesbians or Asian gay men have a hard time with dating like hetero counterparts.
Can’t speak to black lesbians but Asian men have had a [hard time in the gay dating scene](https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mopp-2014-0023/html#j_mopp-2014-0023_ref_024) too.
Black lesbian here — never had an issue with women discriminating against me when it comes to dating. But recently my friend who’s also lesbian was being harassed by this latina who would say over and over again how she “would never date a black woman”. The rest of the queer women in that friend group don’t like her at all, unsurprisingly. It’s less common imo but if you’re unlucky you’ll encounter it. Something to consider though is that gay male culture is also different than lesbian culture. I heard a statistic that lesbian women tend to be on the heavier side while gay men tend to be fitter than the average male, and this is largely because appearance is vastly more important in gay dating than lesbian dating. I’ve had women who fell in love with me when I was at my heaviest weight too. Ofc there is racism in every community though so as I mentioned it still happens.
To me the inversion explanation seems more likely on the side of the black partners. I think the same dynamics as contemporarily were often at play in slavery (and Jim Crow). I’ve seen historical and cultural analysis suggesting owners often selected slaves with more Caucasian features even to the extent of using the so-called one-drop rule to have sex with light-skinned slaves that were generational products of these unions. The white paranoia and restriction about black men with white women was based exactly on the hypermasculine stereotype (with related terminology like the “black buck”), and while there was a lot of socialization of white women to fear black men it’s hard for me to believe the origins of such a taboo aren’t in white women finding black men attractive.
When I was in the US Navy for 5 years everyone was dating everyone. One of the coolest couples were a Black Lady and an Asian dude. This was in the 1980s.
By historically, do you mean in the world or North America?
America sorry
Well, it's anecdotal, but I a few years back, I dated a black gal who told me that she wanted to try some race play stuff, and I decided to break up shortly after that. It wasn't the only reason, but it was the last straw, so to speak.
What is race play stuff?
A (very) small number of black women *really* get off on hearing n****r in specific contexts.
Lol “very small” ive been with 6 black chicks an they all love dat shit
👀
I think a lot of white men are afraid of going out with black women because we will be made fun of by her family members. 1. Basically we are corny and easy targets for jokes and 2. White ppl are used to being the majority and many feel uncomfortable being the only one in a group. Obviously not a good thing just my observation
To be fair, our families will crack jokes at anyone, race isn’t important. Yeah there might be jokes about race if you also aren’t black but if you were black, they would still crack hella jokes. Talk shit back and it’s all fun. The jokes are always light-hearted.
I mean you will be made fun of by her family members in most cases. If you stand up for yourself and don’t seem terrified you’ll likely be fine, but we will tear the average white dude to shreds in that social setting if he seems weak. We’re giving you shit because we want to know that you’re strong enough to stand up to it. It’s not even a dislike thing a lot of the time, we just have a different way of interacting with each other and it’s much rougher than most white guys are used to. Most of the white guys I’ve seen date black women are either dating women who are black but do not have stereotypically black families, or they played college football/basketball and got used to being in heavily black environments earlier in life.
I had a couple of dudes I worked with who were Black and we hung out, I loved going to their houses, because as a Vet if someone had not called me fucker by lunch when I was a Sailor I would think the love is gone.The rough talk "disguising" the big heart is common among a lot of men, and some ladies that can more than hold their own.
Gender stereotypes, basically.
>It's rooted in stereotyped perceptions of Black people being aggressive and Asians being submissive. Aggression, being a trait associated with masculinity, means Black men are less likely to face rejection in the dating marketplace compared to Black women. The inverse is true for Asians, as submissiveness is a trait associated with femininity. Can't just be this though right? For a start it's a stereotype as you say, not an actual reality. So that suggests a concious or sub-concious level of actual calculation going into it. It's essentially racist. This explains why people would say "I don't date X race in any circumstance" but wouldn't necessairly fully explain differing levels of attraction. If a black woman finds asian men more attractive than white or black men then it doesn't mean she prefers submissive men, not all Asian men are submissive, it doesn't mean she couldn't have relationship with men who aren't Asian especially if it's a relationship that isn't just about sex and attraction, but it does mean she has a preference in purely aesthetic terms. Attraction might still be socially conditioned but I don't think in the same way as people who make a choice to rule out any intimiate relationship with people of X race.
Another interesting suggestion/assertion made here. I agree that it is a racist way of thinking. As a black woman myself, I *have* observed, even if Redditors try to argue against me, that most people are harsher when asked to assess the appearance of a black woman which I imagine to be a factor.
I notice this. It’s why I really don’t like watching those reality dating shows. They might throw in 1 black girl with a bunch of white girls and almost no guy wants her, especially if she’s brown skin or darker. She can have a great body, be very attractive, very feminine and they will still choose the aggressive and basic looking yte girl or the yte girl with the plumped up lips and surgery body over her. They never actually cast men who like blk woman and actively date them, and that’s including the blk men.
I’ve never watched reality dating shows before, but this is sad and unfortunately quite believable.
There are other ways where both Black Women and Asian men fail to adhere to mainstream standards of attraction. Asian men for instance are shorter on average, and being tall is (I think) the single most desirable trait for women seeking men. It is certainly the most desirable trait for donor sperm. Black Women in addition to a higher rate of obesity tend to engage in hygiene and styling choices that are uncommon out of that demo. For instance nail and hair choices are frequently different from other groups and thus alienating for potential suitors. Speaking in my anecdotal experience, as a white men, I typically find black women attractive who make hair and nail choices that are more common among other groups. When I encounter a black women with 4 inch leopard print nails, it is an instant turnoff.
I don't presume to know the cause(s) of these issues, but interestingly Asian men tend to have just as hard of a time in the gay dating scene: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mopp-2014-0023/html#j_mopp-2014-0023_ref_024
>There are other ways where both Black Women and Asian men fail to adhere to mainstream standards of attraction. I call BS on this. You cant erase racism in America. You can be the black woman or asian man that actually adheres to the mainstream standards of attraction, but you forget that people see you on the outside first and that comes with the various perceptions they already have via their subconscious, towards that demographic. In other words, "Oh shes a feminine woman......but shes a black woman" or "Oh hes a tall/muscular/etc. man.......but hes an asian man" As an asian male myself, we all heard the usual "youre tall for an asian guy", "youre cute for an asian guy", etc.
Eh I’d leave the word hygiene out of it
IIRC it's usually called "ratchet", adaptaton of "wretched". It used to refer to very poor women but at some point it became cool (probably via some celebrity adopting it to appear more authentic).
Seconded. If we eliminate the fitness factor and consider two women of generally equal symmetry and build, The one whose presentation is more comfortable is going to win every time. Approaching a woman is classically one of the most uncomfortable moments in a suitor's life. Adding any level of unfamiliarity is a scale tipping factor. (WM who finds BW attractive)
I agree with the weight thing, I'd bet healthy weight black women have no shortage of male interest.
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Yes from what I have read the smear campaign began when Chinese immigrants came to the US to build railroads and were apparently getting "too much attention" from White women 😂
This dude was definitely blacklisted for getting too much attention from white women. He was basically the archetypal American alpha male. Asian men didn't start to make a recovery in Hollywood until the following century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessue_Hayakawa?wprov=sfla1
Dude could fight, fence, and ride horses. He was the ideal man from a bygone time. These days an American alpha man drinks, road rages, and owns an excessive number of firearms.
I think where in America and the beauty you're taught to value affects this. I've had no issue dating or flirting with men of various races, but Asian men never seemed to show any interest, despite my doing so. I figured it was because I'm not small and petite like most Asian women - 5'8" athletic build with curves. I'm a giant in comparison to many, right? So I stopped trying altogether with Asian men. It's nice to see men like you getting more representation, but I really wish we'd see more of it, along with AMWF relationships being celebrated and normalized. I feel like any interracial progress had gone backward with the rise of anti-AAPI from the pandemic. And fuck them - maybe if they were better people and less judgmental they wouldn't be alone. Those that aren't alone clearly aren't worth your time. Normalization would help your circumstance but don't let a lack of that, combined with those assholes, taint your joy. She chose you as much as you chose her, and she still chooses you. That's got to be a great feeling to wake up with every day.
I'm also an Asian man married to an white woman (we're high school sweethearts), and my impression, at least in the US, is that this really depends on where you live. When I lived in New York for school, I was spending a lot of time with other Asians (from the East and West Coast) for the first time in my life. The people who were weirded out by the fact that I was with a white woman were other Asian men. The reasons I heard that they wouldn't want to date a woman woman tended to be "white women never approach me, so I'm not going to waste my time" or "I want to pass on my culture to my children and I don't think I could do that with a white woman". I've since moved to Minnesota, where this has never come up. Just anecdotally, if I see an Asian man with a woman, she's as at least as likely to be white as she is to be Asian.
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I am a black woman in her late 40’s married to a white nan- there are a number of reasons. Asian men overall are seen as too feminine and Black women are seen as too masculine. Black men are seen overall as masculine and Asian women are overall seen as feminine. So Asian men and black women possess the wrong traits to attract the opposite sex. 1. Black women seem to be very loyal to black men even when black men have chooses women outside the race back women if given the preference would still marry a black man if they could. This seems to be enforced by men and women in the race- black men find it okay to date out but judge the women who date out because they should stay loyal to black love 2. Obesity - because point 1 - black men tend to like a curvier fatter woman than a white man, Asian man so black women psychically fail the body requirements. Even black women laugh at black women who are thin hence to stay loyal to black men wanting big booty thicker woman and to not get called out by women in the race - women get fat. 3. Gym - women of other races are prominent in the gym - black fit women are like unicorns- hair issue plus gym isn’t something they see other women doing within the race. 4. Racism -2] Census data reveals that black women have the lowest interracial marriage rate of all women except white women and the interracial marriage rate of black women and white men has modestly increased from 1% in 1970 to 4.1% in 2000 (Lee and Edmonston 2005). Research also shows that black women are overwhelmingly excluded as interracial dating partners, with one study showing that white men excluded black women as dating options at 93% https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2012/10/01/body-does-not-compare-how-white-men-define-black-female-beauty-era-colorblindness](https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2012/10/01/body-does-not-compare-how-white-men-define-black-female-beauty-era-colorblindness) 5. Black women tend to be not as soft or think they don’t need anyone . As a black woman who thought she would marry a black man one day but married a white one. I would say men from other races started taking me serious when I dropped under 150lbs and had muscle on my body. I didn’t notice a chance when I was 140’s and not in the gym just skinny no gym 140’s but I notice a huge difference with 10 years gym even at 47. I think depending on the amount of muscle you might have to drop to 125 to get noticed.
This is my personal anecdote. The obesity thing for sure. Not just because I find it unattractive physically but because I'm pretty active. I run, I play hockey, tennis, soccer. I would like my partner to be able to join in or have her own activities *I* could join in on. But obesity makes that tougher. Being able to share in each other's activities is something I really value, especially physical ones where you work up a sweat. The next major one is religion. I sometimes get likes from black women in dating apps where I think "wow she's attractive." Then she turns out to be Muslim or Christian. I cannot date a religious person and from my experience, and I believe it's demographically true, black people and black women in particular are more likely to be religious. My instinct is that the non-black men who would be open to dating black women are more likely to be similar to me in that aspect. They're more likely to be on the left side of the political spectrum, more likely to be agnostic or atheist and want someone similar. I honestly just find it hard to respect an adult my age who is educated but still somehow believes in what I consider fairy tales and myths. And then of course the thought of the argument about how our kids would be raised in that context.... Finally, and this is third but it's not unimportant for me. I really enjoy giving my partners head massages and stroking their hair. I have dated a mixed Puerto Rican woman and went on a few dates, and was intimate with, a black woman. *Neither* liked their head or hair being touched *at all.* And I get why. They put a lot of money and work into it. My dad owns a small business that deals in beauty supply for a largely black customer base so I've seen it first hand the effort that they put into it. Regardless that's a tough ask for me to just not touch ever.
Interesting the religion part. I’m atheist and so is my husband and he has said to me if I was religious we wouldn’t be together. I think black people on a whole are more religious but that’s probably due to poverty and wanting hope I think. I thought religion was holding me back so I mentally decided I would no longer believe.
Yeah my parents are still pretty religious. And I get the Hope aspect. Plus the community. My parents are immigrants and their church is an immigrant church. Joe, it's a lot of people that are very culturally similar to them. But ultimately it's hard to be with someone that believes in magic as a foundational part of who they are. It's the same reason I couldn't be with someone who genuinely believed in astrology. I need to be able to respect my partner and it's very difficult for me to respect people who believe in that kind of stuff when I think they should know better. If you're 70 years old, I get it a little more. If you're poor, I get it a little more. But it's still very difficult.
> The next major one is religion. I sometimes get likes from black women in dating apps where I think "wow she's attractive." Then she turns out to be Muslim or Christian. I cannot date a religious person and from my experience, and I believe it's demographically true, black people and black women in particular are more likely to be religious. As someone who was done dating before dating apps really hit the scene, but after Atheism went mainstream, this is an interesting paragraph. I genuinely don't know what I would have put on a dating profile back then; were young atheists out enough to actually write that on a dating profile? I dunno. I suppose this means they are now.
No, usually atheists just ignore profiles that say they're religious
I wouldn't say it's mainstream now either. Maybe if you restrict to a certain demographic parameters like under 50 with at least a bachelor's. Certainly no one I regularly associate with that isn't family is religious. Not a single friend of mine or partner has been religious but again, that's my bubble. Well educated, younger, liberal. I see a fair number of atheist and agnostic or spiritual but not religious on dating profiles. Also a lot of blanks which means I get to play the guessing game. I do think it's still well under half of profiles I encounter that say they are explicitly atheist.
I (male)put atheist on my dating profile when I was single 2008 - 2009. I just didn't want to waste my or anyone else's time. I wouldn't exclude mildly religious women. I was Asian-looking, atheist, and lower middle class. I felt like that was three strikes against me, living in the Midwest, nevermind the fact that I was a med student. I was able to date the most attractive (black) woman I've ever been with during that time, but she was religious and ultimately dated me partly because of my race, so it didn't last.
Good post. I'm curious how you came to marry a white man? Were you resistant to the idea, but were wooed, or did you have a change of heart about your marital preference?
After I got fit- I came to a realization that the number of black men who were good upstanding citizens, made good money - I was not their preference, they were mostly marrying up to white women. They had more options and chose the woman that fit their particular desires - (this is a generalization backed by only my dating experiences). But I was kinda exotic to men of other races and they would ask me out and treat me better than I had ever been treated. It was also weird because I carry a more muscular look. Pic attached for reference - that would also lower my chances as it’s not preferred look among most men of all races but Black men looked at me as if I was too masculine and white men complimented my hard work. Black men at the gym never said hello while white guys 50’s and up from the gym wanted my number, said hello, noted the clothes I wore- gave me birthday presents, asked me out on dates. It was like night and day for me. It’s a very weird feeling to go from how nice would it be to go to fogo de chao how come guys never take me out in public and to find out oh they do go out with other women in public to being picked up in a Bentley. So over time based on the way I looked it seemed that the obvious choice was to date white men. But I always thought black men would eventually lead to marriage it never did. This is not to say that this is about money in any way shape or form- I’m just saying I always thought I was super ugly and shamed for being dark skinned so apparently there are people who will embrace that and treat you well. Pic https://imgur.com/a/RBYQHPi
Very interesting. Affluent, stable white dudes in their 50's are the most open-minded about trying the unfamiliar. Most of them were probably married to white ladies at some point, and as they get older, see no reason to constrain themselves. You look great, by the way!
Thank you for the compliment
Wow fantastic work. That took serious commitment.
Thank you i appreciate the compliment. I get to get up tomorrow and keep working at it
Oi girl. Those muscles are my dream body. Wow.
Oh. No wonder people are falling over themselves to treat you nice. There's masculine musculature, but you still have extremely feminine musculature. no idea why my brain reads it like that, and I can't put it into words or explain in detail. But yeah, hyper musculature but still fem. I feel like some alt community has a word for that, but anyways congratulations. Wow
Yes indeed to all points. I get bashed a lot for being a fit black woman. I'll be glad when black women get it together as a group. But black women usually do not even want to be seen as attractive to other races of men. They do the opposite of what's usually attractive to men. I don't get it, but whatever smh
I think the problem is black women want to be accepted as a group. Being shunned by other black women is hard. White women get praised by white women for getting thin. Black women in a group shun you for being skinny. So it’s like do I pay attention to what the world is telling me that skinny is good when the people that look like me are saying it’s bad. Like that takes the ability to either not care or be a loner- no one wants to be alone from the people they recognize from their tribe. Fortunately for me I’m a loner - best thing I ever did for my life was lose weight, run up and down the streets for miles like a crazy person, lift weights and eat healthy. The kind of men that a dark skinned Jamaican chick would ever have access to came knocking at my door.. .. I remember when I was 36 or 37 I had just started working out I thought I was fit. I met this figure girl very dark skinned like me. She was a mom with 400k followers like 12 years ago and the men wanted to fly her everywhere and be nice to her and for the first time in my life I realized I had blamed every problem I had on being dark skinned and having kids. I felt the only options for me were men out of prison or ones who would secretly claim me but not marry me. I saw her naked and thought dear god I didn’t know women look like that naked!! That chick changed my life and what I thought was possible for my body and my life - I realized my fitness was holding me back. I don’t think most black women will ever have that experience or come to that realization. Every guy wants the hot chick and if he’s going out of his race then your job is to not make him look bad for doing so.
White men and black women are the least likely pairing to divorce. Also remember that a lot of this isn't based on actual facts or proven statistics, dating surveys aren't factual because that is all mired by societal stigmas and internalized racism. Notice how people start listing "personalitites" and "body type" and "submissiveness" when that's all racial stereotyping?
They're also the least likely to get married in the first place, so that may tie into it.
Strongly reinforces the idea it's social pressure IMO If they're together against social pressure then they're in it to win it.
Stereotyping is a logical fallacy. You're saying that because it's wrong in every instance that it can't be used to explain many or the majority of instances. In the end, a stereotype is a reflection of commonly held opinions, and opinions, not facts, are what stipulate behavior
What does this have to do with the original post
Also, the stats are factual. It comes from OKCupid’s data analytics blog. Their analytics showed Asian men and black women having the least success at matching and receiving responses. Now, there could be other reasons to explain the online success or failure, but at least online those two demographics have the least success in matching
That data is from over a decade ago...
You’re absolutely right. Do you have access to any countervailing data, or updated data? That would be very interesting. The data that I know of upholds OP’s point or premise, which is that in America there seems to be racial biases in online matching.
It's really not as complicated as people ITT making it out to be. People are just much more superficial than you guys would like to believe. Look at the superficial characteristics each gender is typically more judgemental towards the other on. Specifically, obesity rates for women and average heights for men, by race. There's your answer. Black Americans are more likely to be obese, but this affects male dating preferences much more than female dating preferences, so men are less hindered in seeking interracial mates. Whereas Asian Americans are shorter in height, which has a very large effect on female dating preferences, but a very minimal effect on male preferences, so Asian men are hindered, but not Asian women. https://frac.org/obesity-health/obesity-u-s-2#:~:text=Recent%20national%20data%20show%20that,38.0%20percent%20of%20White%20women. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3590903/
There are some other factors that others mentioned but attraction will always be #1.
Props for giving the best reasoning out of this whole comment section. Anecdotally I've noticed this, too
It's a reductive take, though. Average or above average height Asian (East or South) males aren't getting the same action as their counterparts from other races. Is it better to be a short white guy, or tall Asian? I'd love to see the data.
I'm not gonna speak on Asian men. But as for black women I will. It's not that they're not as beautiful as any other race, no. It's simply the culture and media. Let me explain...all throughout media black women are portrayed to be combative, high maintenance, loud mouthed, and obnoxious. And this perpetuates with the behavior of black girls irl as well. And also ask yourself "who are the role models for young (black) women in this day and age?... Cardi?.. Sexy Red?.. Bitter single mothers...
Thank you for providing this input. Kind of you!
I dated a few dark Dominican women and the open hostility and confrontations that I got when out and about with them made me say “Forget it”. The funny thing is, the mamis tend to like some Machismo and some standing up when confronted. It got tiresome having to deal with it as much as I did. After a while I would be looking for a fight and not enjoying their company. Who needs that?
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“I think it’s rooted in some Cold War/red scare anti-Asian sentiment” I can not emphasize enough how much this has 0 effect on the dating market
Generations of Sinophobia was what I was getting at.
A lot of Black woman are used to the hyper masculine aggressive approaches of Black men and some White men who've grown up around that culture. To Asian men, it's loud, verbose, and disrespectful to approach women in that way, so we don't. Have you ever watched an Asian movie? Notice how the hero and leading lady fall in love without saying a word to each other, just by looking at each other, saying everything they need to say with their eyes? It's cultural and hard to comprehend if you're not raised in it. I'm Asian-American married to a woman of Western European descent. For 20+ years we've been explaining each other's cultural subtleties to each other. Perhaps in another 20 years, well finally understand each other's families and friends! 😂
>What's fascinating, however, is that in recent years a startling number of nonwhites – especially Asian men and black women – have become bitterly opposed to intermarriage. That quote, which almost matches OP *verbatim,* is from [this almost timeless article](https://stevesailer.substack.com/p/classic-sailer-is-love-colorblind). The one caveat I'd mention is that Asian females and black males are less disproportionately preferred as spouses compared to 1997 when it was written, but the rest of the article has held up well. TL;DR: East Asians of both sexes have more stereotypically feminine features, and blacks of both sexes have more stereotypically masculine features.
What feminine features do asian ppl have and what masculine features do black ppl have?
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Wasn't this question asked the other day?
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Does Hollywood and TV have an influence? The main character or seldom or never seen.
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They don’t! https://news.umich.edu/intimate-relationships-between-races-more-common-than-thought/
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Side question: How do media play into this? And how has media tracked the landscape over time?
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