From: joe@spdcc.com (Joseph Francis)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: race based fetishes
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:43:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1993Jan8.154330.17630
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA


We've discussed the question of G?M seeks same before on MOTSS,
without any sort of resolution (as though resolution is possible) and
I thought about it for more than my usual 10 seconds before replying.
It seems that there are several convergent reasons for the application
(G?M seeks same). To generalize, I feel that the problem is a part of
the system itself, and not the people. Since divergent views can arrive
at racist overtones, it is a problem of mechanism rather than intent.

1) GWM seeks same; BL/BL, 5'10", 175lbs, into romantic evenings out,
walks along the beach, safe sexual encounters with someone I know well.
No fats, fems, smokers, druggies. Pic/Pic. Serious Only.

2) GWM seeks same; Br/Br, 5'9", 180lbs. turn-ons: Alternative Music,
long hair, late-nite/early-morning hot safe sex, a joint to relax
maybe, j/o with each other to videos. No Fats/fems/smokers. Pic/pic.

3) GWM, Black Hr/Bl eyes, Bodybuilder. Bearded, 5'11", 200lbs, into
baseball, hockey. Serious FF bottom, but also have a fat cock for
willing asses. Find my limits. No fats/fems. Like a good stogey
occasionally.

4) GM, Non-drinker, non-smoker, likes quiet conversations in
coffeehouses. Activist, Socially aware, looking for more than casual
acquaintances. You get: package that gets better the more the wrapper
comes off.

Now. In a gay male magazine why would one ever see "GM", regardless of
color. That is one of the oddities.

One could rationalize that "no fats/fems" is talking about a person's
preferences, but the reality is that the statement is - "I don't like
to have relationships, sex, friendships with fat or effeminate men".
That's a pretty shocking thing to say. A person may, indeed, be
seeking slender, muscular, etc. bodies. That should be stated as such
- "seeking swimmer's builds". Inclusive. The other implies not so much
that they aren't attracted to fats/fems, but that fats/fems are so
desperate that they will tend to answer all ads no matter how boring, and
that they are terribly undesirable. That's the message. Slice it, dice it,
mince around it, that's the intent.

As for GWM "seeking same": one rationalization is, of course, "I'm
attracted to white skin". I don't think, in my life, I've ever met a
gay man who consciously stated "I'm attracted to white skin". In fact,
usually when I have discussion with other white gay males, it is taken
for granted that "type" is "white", and that that white skin could be
considered unattractive isn't even a question. So, rationalization
that "I am attracted to white skin", on the part of Euro-descent men
is specious. The flip side of this is, of course, that black skin
/can/ be considered unattractive. I think about 25% of my gay friends
have, indeed, stated to me that they find black skin (or
African-American racial features) unattractive. I grant that that is
entirely possible, and can be true at the same time as the person is
not being overtly racist. I don't find willowy people attractive. I'm
not a willowist. The trick to the process is when those same people
say not only that they find blackness unattractive, but that it is
repulsive, or that never in their life could they imagine having sex
with a black man, or that they are shocked that I might. That's
clearly racism. How might that factor into GWM sks same?

No one is going to, in a public forum, state "I dislike black people"
in this day and age. It is very un-PC, and very unattractive. How
might someone get around it? They say "I like white people". They
state a sort of banality ("I like my own race"), for which an opposite
would be a rarity ("I dislike my race") in order to assert, what I
would claim, in reality, is that they dislike other races. It is a
socially acceptable way for stating a very socially unacceptable idea.

I'm lucky. My fetishes aren't that racially biased, though not many
men of Asian or African descent are hirsute, but a moustache is usally
enough to push that button on my libido adding-machine. I also grew up
with Japanese people in my rather lily-white family, my sister-in-law
is second-generation Japanese (my brother married her when I was 6),
and I've long known her parents (I also knew for a long time that they
had been interned in Manzinar, yet another layer of issues).

I'm lucky, I suppose, I can't imagine saying "GWM sks same" for
myself. I can imagine others, like me, who might, just might, write
such simply out of form, out of rote. A part of the personals system
is, in fact, patterning your messages to look like others to be
acceptable, to speak a similar language. The problem is the language
that is spoken in personals, the mechanism. The only personal I've
ever run was rather, well, dramatic, and got interesting responses. It
didn't have a lot to do with my looks, or at all with the looks of the
person I was asking for (except for minimum height/weight
requirements).

What is needed is not justification for a system which, with simple
scrutiny, can be shown to be rather racist, and clearly by people
within the community felt to be racist. What should be developed is a
new code of communication personals information, needs and offerings.
One can easily communicate that one likes slender pale 20-year-olds
without being offensive to husky ruddy 40-year-olds, or that one is
white and prefers the aerodynamic luster of a black man's skin to
freckled pink expanses, without simply chasing someone because they
are stereotypically "black". The shorthand needs to be developed.
-- 
US Jojo; damp, slighly soiled, but tasty nonetheless.