I’ve written before about how dating sites and apps are one of the few remaining places where people are free to discriminate, and gay men appear to be particularly unenlightened. Here’s an article addressing the same thing:
Dating applications can allow users to fall into their own racial biases while searching for a partner, a new study says.
Meaning, people have dating preferences. What a revelation.
But in their study, researchers from schools like Cornell University say the “sexual racism” that plagues apps like Grindr, Tinder and Bumble can be stamped out with a few simple changes.
User preferences can be stamped out by not giving people any choice.
The end goal, the study says, is to promote more diverse pairings on the dating sites.
The ultimate goal of dating sites is miscegenation, eh? And there was me thinking they were there to make money for the owners by giving users a service they want.
Jevan Hutson, lead author of the study, said …“Intimacy is very private, and rightly so, but our private lives have impacts on larger socioeconomic patterns that are systemic.”
Your love lives must contribute towards the greater good of a mixed-race society.
Take the case of Sinakhone Keodara for example. He threatened to sue Grindr, a dating app for gay, bi and trans men, because of “sexual racism” he faced on the site, NBC reported. More specifically, Keodara says some users on the site had captions like “Not interested in Asians.”
So what’s the alternative? You meet with a guy who doesn’t like Asians? How does that end well?
As noted by the study — which compiled data from prior research — white people are ten times more likely to receive a message from a black person on a dating app than they are to message the black user themselves. That suggests a hierarchy of attention on racial lines.
Okay, but we can add that to the long list of other factors in the hierarchy of attention: height, beauty, wealth, intelligence, social status, breast size, hair colour, sense of humour, etc.
The study found other examples of inequalty in dating apps, including:
Asian men and black women have the lowest chance of receiving a message or a response.
Right, but are these people living in majority white countries? It would seem odd indeed if Asian men in China or black women in Nigeria weren’t getting many responses , but in the US or UK? What do they expect?
White people of “all ages” prefer to go on dates with other white people.
Isn’t this true generally of all races?
College students are most likely to avoid going on dates with black women.
Does this include black male college students? If so, maybe someone could ask them why?
Stephanie Yeboah, a blogger, said that she has experienced racism as a black woman on online dating apps even when people are open to meeting up, according to The Independent. She said that some people ask offensive questions like if they can “get a taste of jungle fever” — and say they want to see if black women are “as aggressive in bed as they’ve heard.”
Well, yes. Manners and politeness tend to disappear altogether when strangers communicate electronically while hiding their true identity. Take a look at Twitter, for example. This isn’t unique to dating apps.
“Comments such as these are extremely dehumanizing to myself and other black women who are only looking for companionship,” she told The Independent. “It seems to suggest that black women are only good for one thing, and cites back to previous ideologies of black people being compared to primates; as primal and feral, hyper-sexualized creatures. It’s very hurtful.”
To be honest, I’m surprised more black women don’t feel that way after watching a rap video.
The study’s authors noted that OK Cupid itself experimented with pairing up users and saying they were “highly compatible” — even though they weren’t considered good matches — and found that the conversation between the two people often went well.
And if it didn’t? Well, that terrible date you’ve just been on is the result of an experiment you were unwittingly forced to take part in. How the hell is this ethical?
In other words, it appeared that just the mere suggestion that two people were compatible made both users more likely to give the connection a chance.
Anyone who’s used online dating sites will tell you the compatibility ratings are a load of nonsense.
The study’s authors wrote in a press release that it proves “the strong power of suggestion” that can be used to bridge the gap between people of different races.
Why is this even desirable?
Another potential solution could come from 9Monsters, a gay dating app from Japan, that allows people to describe themselves without explicitly revealing their race, according to the study’s authors.
…
Another gay dating app, called Hornet, prevents people from using their profile to mention race at all.
This might work well for pen-pals, but I’m not sure it’ll work for people who eventually want to have sex with one another. It’s just delaying the inevitable to a point where time and effort have been expended.
The study’s authors concede that sexual racism is a hard thing to conquer — but Keodara, who threatened to sue Grindr, said fixing the problem would improve the mental well-being of people of color looking for a chance at love on dating apps, according to The Guardian.
So we should treat people of colour as mentally-ill and unable to navigate dating preferences? Could this be any more patronising?
“Over the years I’ve had some pretty harrowing experiences,” Keodara told The Guardian. “You run across these profiles that say ‘no Asians’ or ‘I’m not attracted to Asians’. Seeing that all the time is grating; it affects your self-esteem.”
Imagine how short, bald men have felt for decades.
This whole nonsense about sexual racism is the illogical endpoint of anti-discrimination laws which force people to associate with those they’d rather avoid. Give it a few years and there’ll be legislation being passed forbidding you from not dating in a state-approved manner. I kid, but not by much.
Incidentally, I’ve seen a few articles and tweets here and there which suggest one of the freest web forums is the one on Pr0nHub, simply because busybodies and the perpetually offended would never contemplate using the site. You think people just talk about sex on there? Think again:
One day we’ll all be Pr0nHub users, sneaking under the ever-pinging radar of the SJWs roving overhead.