Letter: Out but not in?

Eddy Elmer

XTRA! West, 11 October 2007

This letter responds to an article describing the difficulties gay minorities face being accepted by the larger white gay community. Once again, I think people are invoking racial discrimination when a simpler (albeit just as troubling) explanation is more fitting in understanding why many gays are so rejecting.

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I applaud Natasha Barsotti's piece on the difficulties gay minorities experience being accepted by the larger white gay community ("The Outsiders", Issue 368, Sep 27). However, I wonder whether race is the major problem. In a community where the physical aspect of relationships is so prominent, I doubt gay people (at least gay men) are that preoccupied with something at such a high level of abstraction.

The simple fact remains that what gay men see when they look at one another is not race—or how they "identify"—but whether or not what they see is beautiful. And despite protestations to the contrary, research shows that attractiveness transcends race: there is widespread agreement across cultures and races as to what is generally considered good-looking.

Thus, when a gay minority is rejected, it is likely not because he is a racial outsider, but, unfortunately, because he is not considered physically attractive, independent of race.

This was made quite evident in a recent posting on Craigslist: "Show me a big, muscular Asian, 6'2", 225 lbs, hung 9"...and I'll be drooling over him, hair or no hair, cut or uncut. Show me some little guy...who's 5'2", smooth as my sister, with a shape like my sister, and a penis the size of her nipples, and who happens to be Asian, and no—I'm not going to pop a woody. Wouldn't pop a woody if the guy was like that and white, either."

While this poster strongly asserts that gay men do not reject because of race, he just as strongly demonstrates the still commonplace disdain for people who might not be considered physically ideal. Whatever way you look at it, we've still got a long way to go before we can consider ourselves accepting of those in our community.

Eddy Elmer,
Vancouver, BC

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Below is a response to criticism that I ignore how frequently men on online dating services make mention of explicit racial preferences (e.g., "No Asians, No Blacks"):

The debate in XTRA! West over the last two weeks has not been about racial preferences. We've been talking about why some people are rejected in the dating arena. There is a difference between the physical qualities (including race) that we prefer, and certain physical qualities that would make us actively devalue or reject someone (and discrimination by nature involves devaluation and rejection).

We may prefer, or perhaps even categorically refuse to date people with certain physical qualities, but this does not necessarily mean that we would actively devalue or reject them. When rejection does occur, it’s often for the same reason it occurs within a person’s own race—physical unattractiveness.

Let’s face it, a white person would be more likely to reject and discriminate against an ugly Caucasian than against a beautiful Asian. And some research backs me up here: physically attractive racial minorities are less likely to be discriminated against than physically unattractive ones.

Perhaps I somewhat overestimate the influence of general physical attractiveness, but I think I end up in the same spot as many of the other dissenters: gay men don’t care that much about race in the abstract, social, or political sense. They don't care enough about Race, with a capital R, to discriminate. They just care about what turns them on physically. (Unfortunately, this does not make them any less likely to look down on those who are less than physically ideal.)