How do you begin to respond to a 936 word essay where someone tries to rationalize their learned racial sexual attraction? I mean, do you even try to respond or do you continue to move along in the world as if all 936 of those words didn’t just fully affirm the exact thing the author was trying to combat? Although if I think about it I don’t know that the author was trying to combat what he was presenting or just trying to rationalize for himself why folks shouldn’t be upset with him for his limited scope in relation to racial sexual attraction.
The piece, titled “I’m Not Racist, I’m Just Not Attracted To Black Men,” was written by a guy who describes himself as “a fit, masculine, relatively good-looking white top, 5 foot 10 inches, blue eyes, short hair.” Oh, let me clarify he is a gay white male–note the reference to being a “top.” Let me say that if you have no interest in reading about gay male sexuality then you probably should just stop here…actually I suppose if you’re reading this site there is something that peeks your interest about the topic…so, keep reading I guess.
Ok, so it seems that this author was inspired to write this essay because…(sorry, another aside)…let’s give this guy a name because it is important to give character to people in a story. From here forward I will call him Tom (I would call him Matt because that is a common and stereotypical white gay male name…but it is my gay white partner’s name and he would likely get rather upset). So, it seems that Tom was inspired to write this essay because he was tired of being called racist on Grindr.
Grindr is an app on mobile devices created for non-heterosexual men to connect virtually until they elect to connect in person.
Tom says “My tribe is “clean cut,” and I’m one of those Grindr profiles you click that says “white for white only.” You should see my message history: I get so many messages from people calling me racist, some of them black guys but also some from other races too (including white guys), and they constantly tell me that my personal preferences are racist, that I’m misguided, brainwashed. But the truth is much more straightforward: I’m just not attracted to black men.” After reading that I felt sorry for Tom. Oh, I wasn’t sorry because he was getting the messages he was getting; no, I felt sorry for Tom because he was so easily able to trivialize attraction in such a fashion. It is like Tom was saying he didn’t like poppers.
Poppers is a slang term given to the chemical class called alkyl nitrites that are inhaled for recreational purposes, especially as an aphrodisiac.
Tom. Tom, did you try poppers and they just weren’t for you? Ok Tom, I totally get that you don’t like poppers because you felt funny, nauseous and paranoid…DON’T do them again!
Tom, did you try black guys?
“There’s something I can’t explain that just doesn’t feel a sexual attraction to them.” Tom says. “You know, chemistry. It’s as simple as that. I’m not attracted to black guys in the same way that I don’t like girls. It’s all a question of preference.”
So I wonder for a moment if Tom knows the difference between preference and orientation; at the same time I wonder if Tom remembers that he is gay. I only wonder these things because as gay people we have fought to delineate a clear distinction between preference and orientation. I prefer to drink white chocolate mochas from Starbucks over any other coffee shop I have experienced thus far; that’s a choice I have..right…to drink the one which I prefer. My gold star gay friends other are gold star gays because they are orientated towards men and men alone…there is no desire to be with a woman…it is not that they prefer men over women. They just don’t want women because it is not in their genetic make up to be sexually attracted to them–they are not orientated towards them.
Gold star gays are gay men who NEVER had sex with a woman…(and likely never will).
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I found myself fully understanding what Tom’s friend was saying, and I started to take this out of the context of just Grindr and began looking at it in the larger realm of gay culture. The gay black male is not an ideal expressed as one to strive–but that is how it was for a long while in the heterosexual realm. In heterosexual culture I realize that the idea of exotic becoming erotic is rampant; a shift has been made to strongly sexualize the black male in the mainstream media. And the mainstream media still only puts forward images of gay white males as the ideal in the gay culture.
Tom admits that as he is hearing his friend talk about his feelings that he, Tom, realizes how easy it is for him to find someone to hook-up with (think date, build a relationship with). Tom’s lack of empathy makes him make the mistake of admitting that when he writes someone they typically respond right away, so he doesn’t really understand what his friend is going through.
Tom and his friend continue talking and highlighting notions of how “mainstream gay culture is only for white gay men and there are no mainstream movie[s] or television shows or pornography that eroticizes men of color the [same] way that white guys are, and he tells me that people who are only into white guys are brainwashed by societal beauty norms.” Ok, he says brainwashed and I say systematically indoctrinated…sorta the same thing–right?
Here is the kicker in the conversation and a solid reality that sometimes I wish I could ignore: The idea that if you’re into black men and you’re not black, it’s almost as if you have some kind of fetish.
All of a sudden I am fetishized and not truly desired. And more often than not that is the feeling a gay black male gets when approached by a person outside of his race. Are you interested in me and my beauty or the fetish idea of being with someone who is black? I’ve date several people who would say things like “I love seeing the contrast of our skin together,” or “your skin is dark and I love it.”
In the end Tom says “I like white guys and I feel no remorse or guilt about that whatsoever. I’m white! But having black friends and latino friends and hearing them talk about the shitty gay world we’re in, I’ve been wondering if maybe I have been brainwashed in some way. I did grow up in a reaaaaaaalllllly white suburb, and no one in my family has ever dated outside of their race, and I do think my parents would freak out if I brought a black guy or an Asian guy home (they’re ok with The Gay), and I do worry about cultural differences and whether we would have anything in common, and I’ve never seen a black dick before in real life and the thought of a different colored penis does sort of weird me out. But honestly, maybe it’s just that I don’t have the balls to try something I haven’t tried before.”
Tom, hey, I agree you have been “brainwashed;” we have all been “brainwashed” and so you don’t need to apologize for your actions–don’t. But it seems you have made a great step in trying to understand that your preference is not hardwired–you weren’t born liking only white guys. And you are worried about appropriate things…I mean aren’t we all a little worried about the differences between us and our partners that may force us apart rather than bring us together? And yea you’re right that you probably don’t have the balls to try something different because your comment about a different color penis weirding you out is rather, well…juvenile.
So in the end, no I don’t think Tom is racist…and I’m not angry for what he wrote in his Grindr profile. But I do ask that Tom, and others like him, understand the systematic indoctrination we have all been a part of in relation to beauty.
Go on and grow a pair.
(If you would like to see some images of this Grindr profiles have a tumble here: http://racistgrindr.tumblr.com/)
